Good morning, I was going to post a query anyways, but, before I did, I continued to look for information on a William and Mary CLARK/E from the late 1800's in southern New England (CT/RI/MA). What I then found provided me with a really good laugh! For all those who read the Census forms, you know that more than half the time the Occupation for the Wife states that she "Keeps House." Well, I found a William CLARK living in Holyoke, MA, with his widowed mother, Mrs. Julia CLARK. Under Occupation of this 26-year-old married man, the Census writer wrote down, "Keeps Eating House." :o) I presume that the mother was complaining that her son and daughter-in-law, William and Katy CLARK .. were "eating her out of house and home." :o) To get back to serious business. :o( .. I continue to research my grandmother who was reportedly "a foundling" on the streets of Boston in Feb. 1889. Brand-new information has surfaced within the past week, which shows that my grandmother might not have been born in Boston. There is a faint possibility that she was born in or near Killingly, CT, and that John and Mary DEXTER brought her (as an infant) to Melrose, MA, when they moved there around 1890. This could be a reason why no one has ever been able to find a birth certificate for my grandmother in MA. (Both 30 years ago and last year, searches were done for her original name, Daisy WATROUS, and her Adopted name, Mary Anna Clark DEXTER, from Mar. 1892.) I won't repeat the whole story again, but I'd like to mention again that, when my grandmother got married in Dec. 1911, she wrote down the names of her Adopted parents, John and Mary (CLARK) DEXTER, but she also wrote down the names of her Birth parents as: William and Mary CLARK. We were told she did not know who her birth-parents were, and this was confirmed when I opened her Adoption File in Cambridge Probate Court about 2 years ago. We also have no idea who this William CLARK is. I can only guess that he was somehow related to Mrs. DEXTER who was born and raised in Westport, MA, and her father's name was James CLARK (b1790's ??). This morning I went to www.familysearch.org to look through the 1880 Census information for William and Mary CLARK/E's born in the 1850's in southern New England. The only couple I found with that name was William and Mary CLARK, ages 30 and 26, living in Boston, MA. The Census place was: "E.D. 661" and I was wondering what that meant. I did find a William and Mariah CLARK also living in Boston, around the same ages.. Well, here's another good chuckle! :o) William and Mariah are 26 and 29, and they are listed with two sons, 27 and 17. Another chuckle was coming across the Census page which included a William CLARK in CA .. having been born in 1852 in CT ... who was in 1880 ... living in "San Quenton." :o) or :o( IF William and Mary CLARK were indeed the birth-parents of my grandmother, or at least William CLARK .. then he had to have been an adult in the summer of 1888 .. in MA or CT or RI. My grandmother remembered "an uncle" who was named George CLARK who had moved out to CA. One other suspicion is that, when Mrs. DEXTER died in Melrose, MA, in 1899, and Mr. DEXTER "disappeared," my grandmother, at Age 11, might have gone to live with William CLARK for a few years.. before.... she went to live in "The Temporary Home for Women and Children" on Tremont St. in Boston. Thank you for your time. Betty (near Lowell, MA) P.S. I also noticed that in 1880 in Brockton, MA, two William CLARK's were listed as living in Hotels, and the other residents of the Hotels were listed. Betty (near Lowell, MA, USA) "There are two lasting bequests we can give our children; one is roots, the other is wings." Hodding Carter, Jr.