Graveyard of the Parish Church of St. James, Avebury

Probably for superstitious reasons, a church was built in the Middle Ages right in the center of the prehistoric stone circle of Avebury. Parts of the church today date from Saxon and Norman times. When you go inside, you see what archaeology looks like when it's above ground. You can see all the different threads woven into the fabric of the Parish Church of St. James.

I wish now that I had gotten more pictures of the cemetery, but when you're in Avebury, the stone circle is pretty much the main event, and for good reason. It really is incredible, several times more vast than Stonehenge and (to me) infinitely more beautiful. Then there is the chance to see these ancient features juxtaposed with the medieval. People have been sticking stones upright in the ground for thousands of years. The motivations may have been different at different times, but at its core the gesture has to do with memory.

St. Giles' Churchyard, Oxford, UK

I thought I'd share some pictures of St. Giles' Churchyard, a beautiful place that I used to pass every day during the year I studied in England. It was always full of those huge wood pigeons, which I ultimately ended up calling cemetery chickens. As you can see, the grave markers really look nothing like their contemporaries across the Atlantic. The English and American styles in grave carving diverged radically beginning very early in the colonies' history.

8: John and Mary Green

Grave of John and Mary Green

John and Mary Green are unique among the people of the cemetery I have studied so far. While Jemima Stanton was the first immigrant I encountered, John and Mary are the first immigrant couple. John was born in England around 1814, and Mary was born in Scotland in December 1816.

When did they come to America? Well, it must have been before 1860, because that was the year that their daughter Flora died at the age of 5. She's buried in the cemetery as well, although I didn't photograph her grave.

According to the 1860 census, John and Mary's daughter Alice was born in England, while their daughter Elizabeth was born in New York. This places their date of immigration between 1847 and 1852. At this time John was working as a laborer, and Flora had recently died.

1860 US Federal Census

According to the 1870 census, John was a U.S. citizen. What about Mary? Well, no one cared. There are almost no naturalization records for women in the nineteenth century. A woman became a citizen either through her father or her husband. The status of women in the nineteenth century comes across very clearly through the records. The fact that it's so much easier to research a male ancestor than a female one says a lot by itself.

Anyway, John was working as a gardener, and he and Mary now had five children living with them: Alice, Elizabeth, John, Anna, and Selena.

1870 US Federal Census

Ten years later John, 68, was working as a laborer and Mary, 64, as a nurse. Selena, 19, was the one child still living with them.

1880 US Federal Census

John died on December 12, 1896. Four years later, Mary was living with her son, his wife of 19 years Fannie, and their daughters Mabel and Lillian in Brooklyn. According to the census Fannie was the mother of three children, two of whom were living; Mary was the mother of nine children, six of whom were living. John and Fannie had another child, Howard, who died on May 26, 1884, at the age of one year, nine months, and 15 days; he is buried in the cemetery.

1900 US Federal Census

Mary died on August 12, 1901, at the age of 84.

In 1910, John and Fannie Green had moved to Westchester and were living with their two daughters and two boarders, George and Amy Jane Knapp. John was working as a surveyor.

1910 US Federal Census

John had died by 1920, when Mabel, age 33, was listed as the head of a household that included her 30-year-old sister Lillian, her 58-year-old mother Fannie, and one boarder. Merritt Brundage (a name that combines two very common surnames in the cemetery) is listed as "father," but he's not Mabel's father. Was he her grandfather? At 86 and 79, he and his wife Alvina were old enough to be Fannie's parents.

1920 US Federal Census

Mabel and her sister were teachers at a private school. They probably knew my great-grandmother, who was born just three years after Lillian and was a teacher at the same time and lived in the same neighborhood. Martha Warren, the boarder, was a widow of 47 and a dressmaker.

The 1870 census confirms that Merritt and Alvira Brundage are Fannie's parents. Here they all are, with Fannie's brothers Gilbert and Frank and their farm laborer Daniel Marshall.

1870 US Federal Census

None of these Brundages appear in my transcription from 1914, but it's possible they were buried after that year.

In 1930, Fannie and her daughters were still living together, along with Elizabeth Richards, their 88-year-old lodger. Mabel and Lillian were still working as teachers.

1930 US Federal Census

Lastly, in the 1940 census, Fannie, Mabel, and Lillian were living in the same place, and the sisters were still working as teachers.