The Fun that is Family History

Flashback Friday
Grandma Lewis

Here's a picture I got around to scanning this week. (My guess is it was taken around 1930.) It's of my grandmother Dorothy Gertrude Wilson Lewis (on the right in the back) and her twin sister Winifred Margaret Wilson Lewis (on the left) with the mother that raised them (Anna Scranton Lewis) in the middle and their younger brother and sister - Marjorie and Dick. The Lewis' family adopted the twins around 1920 when they were two and their mother died, and the girls didn't learn about that until they were 18 (part of the adoption agreement).

Anyway, once Grandmother joined the church and started doing genealogy, she focused on her biological family. A couple of years ago, Mom suggested that I work on the Lewis line to see what I could find. I've been having a wonderful time with that and it's hard to put this great big puzzle away and do ordinary things like laundry and cooking and cleaning. I didn't have any extra time for family history while Jeff was home, but this week I was able to carve out a couple of hours and I found some exciting things. It probably won't mean anything to the majority of you, but just in case you're wondering, here's what I found.

Wednesday evening while the kids were at Mutual, I scrolled through a microfilm of East Haddam, Connecticut vital records from 1880-1915, and I found the death dates for two of Frank Lewis' (Anna's husband) great-grandmothers. Maria A. Lee Rich was 70 years old when she died on 9 March 1891 of paralysis/enlargement of the thyroid. Abbie Ward Lewis was 84 when she died on 8 November 1902 of spinal sclerosis/old age.

That night I also found a marriage record for an Alice Lewis which looked like it would fit with the information I had for one of Abbie's daughters. While Michelle was at a friend's house, I spent some time digging at the library (I'm so glad our county library has a subscription to Ancestry.com) and the clues all match. According to the census records Alice (who married William Simpson in 1880 when she was only 17) had 10 children, yet two of them died in childhood.

Anyway, I find this all extremely interesting. When I shared my discoveries with my kids, they rolled their eyeballs. (Well, not really, but I could tell they wanted to.) So, go ahead and roll your eyes, it won't bother me. You just don't know what you're missing!

Oh, and if you do want to look at more "old" pictures and read some wonderful stories, visit Alicia at More Than Words.