New Discoveries

You may remember that I blogged about this story in 2014. To my mind it was a lesson about not taking the family legends too seriously. A story had made its way through the family about a child born out of wedlock. One of those skeletons in the family closet. But it wasn't at all. Henry James "Harry" Tapply had an early marriage to Gertrude Haskins. He then went off to World War I. Gertrude had the baby and died five weeks later. The death cert. we finally located said "anemia and nephritis", but I felt there had to be more to the story.

Lately, I've been trolling the pages of Chronicling America (a free site) and newspapers.com for family obituaries. And sure enough, I found this short obituary for Gertrude. The interesting part to me was "after an illness of five weeks" and "leaves an infant daughter five weeks old". This means that Gertrude's death WAS a result of some trauma around the birth of baby Amy Eunice. (who became June Walley after her adoption by Bess Tapply and Sam Walley)

I've made a few other discoveries too. There was a nice obituary covering the life and career of Richard "Wink" Tapply and his wife Ruth. He went to art school at the Copley School in Boston. He also was loved and admired for his work in recreation services in New Hampshire.

There was another interesting obit for Kathleen Gabel, Donaldson Tapply's daughter. She served in the Navy, worked as a paralegal, managed a restaurant. And this is a whole branch of the family I knew nothing about.

I really enjoyed reading the obit for Sharon Tapply Foster, Philip's daughter and Kevin's sister. She was apparently a bit of a horse whisperer. She rode and trained horses after her retirement. I wish we had gotten to know one another.

Then there is the remembrance that was in the Globe for William G Tapply. He came from the Thomas J Tapply branch of the family. (Charles's older brother) You may have read one of his mystery books from the Brady Coyne series. They are some of my favorites. I still wonder why the branches of the original Tapply family didn't stay in touch. We have so many Tapply cousins out there.

On the English side there is the obit for another Richard Tapply. This Richard lived in Kent, England, where the Tapplys hale from. He spent 54 years running the Wateringbury Brewery. He got quite a remembrance in the Kent and Sussex Courier.

On the other side of my family, an obit dated 1917 put to rest a long mystery and "brick wall" in my research on my father's family. My grandfather's sister Honora or "Nora" Fitzgerald died at only 43. She was a question mark on my tree for a long time. It appears she had heart

trouble.

Another question mark was the exact death date for Lotta Smith from the Rogers side of my family. A friendly person with access to Newsbank helped me find her obit in the 1966 Worcester Telegram. With a little math I was able to get the date from the article and read a nice review of her career as a singer and soloist. 

The other benefit of searching the newspaper archives is that if you do an open search, you get the occasional family story.

This is a Christmas story from 1947 in the  Rochester, New York paper featuring Deborah Levin and her mother Helen Tapply Flaherty Levin. Helen was Roberta's sister and Nell Tapply's daughter.

This story is from the 1939 Fitchburg Sentinel. Apparently Roberta Flaherty (Also Nell's daughter) was working there as a clerk. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that Roberta herself had a hand in composing the article. She was very witty and quite the writer in high school. A cute article.

If you are looking for good or interesting family stories, old newspaper article are the ticket.

Some require a subscription, but others are available through your public library.  Certainly, it's worth giving it a try.

It's All in the Genes

Tapplys about 1900
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As I look at family photos, I'm often struck by little characteristics that are passed from generation to generation.  The Tapplys were in two camps. You can see the dark hair and deep-set eyes on the three
oldest sisters in the back: Annie, Daisy and Nell. Mabel, on the far left, Ethel (next to her) and my grandmother (the baby on Ellen's lap were more fair and had rounder features. But I was taken aback to see two somewhat distant cousins who were more than a bit alike.

Mark Tapply                                                      William G Tapply

A few years ago I began reading the mysteries of the late William G Tapply because I knew as a "double p" Tapply we were somehow related and frankly I was curious. I turned over one book in the series to find this picture.  For the curious cousins reading this, I made a simple tree from my further research.

This makes Mark and William G third cousins. When you compare the jacket photo to my cousin Mark I wouldn't say the resemblance is close, but you can definitely tell they are family.

Sometimes some very distinctive features skip a generation. My brother Mark is most certainly a Fitzgerald, but the resemblance between his son Patrick and his grandfather (both at 16 years) is quite remarkable.

Patrick Fitzgerald                                            John J Fitzgerald
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The chin, the ears, the brow...the set of their eyes...Wow! 

I've been told I look a lot like my father as well and my mother and my grandmother Katie (dad's mom) and my two times great grandmother Cassandria. And I do look a bit like all of them. But then I looked more closely at a picture taken in 1927 of my great grandmother Ellen.

The photo is pretty grainy, but look at the chin and the jawline, the smile lines of the nose, the lips......and my mother always said my very thick blonde hair came from Ellen. Maybe I'm more Tapply than I thought.

Family photos are just one more way to reach into the past and make that gene-alogical connection.