There’s something intriguing about a genealogy mystery, especially when it happens in real life and not in a book or a movie. The particular mystery that I learned about today is even more intriguing to me because it involves a place that I have visited before, Kittery, Maine. What’s more, this real-life New England genealogy lost and found mystery was solved just a few days ago by a professional genealogist from Utah.
The story began a few weeks ago when a resident of Berwick, Maine found a ring on a beach near Kittery. Fortunately, the ring had an inscription so there was some sort of clue to whom it belonged. The inscription read, “CCD to MAL, December 25, 1880”. Marriage records in Kittery show that a Charles C. Dixon married a Maranda A. Lewis on May 12 1881.
Danny Hall of Salt Lake City, Utah, refers to himself as “The Gentleman Genealogist”. He read about the mysterious ring in news stories from a Portsmouth, New Hampshire newspaper and helped to locate three living relatives of Dixon and Lewis. The relatives that Hall located live in Virginia, North Carolina, and New Hampshire.
As a final twist in this incredible but true story, the family members that Hall identified from Virginia and North Carolina were actually in New Hampshire this week, attending services for a deceased relative. The woman that found the ring would like to meet with them to return it, and it appears as though they are interested in meeting up with her. I know that if someone found an artifact from my family’s history, I would certainly want to meet them and not only bring the item back to our family but more importantly to thank them for reuniting it with us. This story is certainly strange, but it is true and is proof that genealogy miracles can and do happen.
Photo by penywise on morguefile.com.
