Dear Dave & Joan and Carol and Everyone, A mystery has been solved. In that pack of papers I was given last week was a little note listing the children of William Henry Sisson, my great-grandfather, whose line is Richard, George, Thomas, William, Nathan, Elisha, William, William Henry. The occasion, I am almost sure, was to give their ages on their birthdays in late 1859 or in 1860, after William Henry had died in March 1859. On one side of the paper he lists - William G. Sisson, 8 years old, 19 April 1860 Frank M. Sisson, 5 years old, 27 June 1860 (my grandfather) Cynthia Adelaide Sisson, 3, Sept 3, 1859 Mary Betsey Sisson, born Nov 5, 1859 and he adds Harriet A. Sisson, widow, 35, Oct 29, 1859. On the other side he gives the birth and death dates of their first child, Mary Ella Sisson, born 21 May 1848 and died June 11, 1854. Carol, I have modified my notes for Mary Ella as follows. Would you cut and paste them into your database please? David Arne Sisson A note in the papers of William Sisson, Mary Ella's grandfather, is probably a near-contemporary record of her birth and death. He notes that she was born 21 May 1848 and died June 11, 1854. Previously I knew only what her gravestone said. It gives her dates as May 21, 1848, to May 28, 1852 (over two years too early). Her baptismal record at the Lyons Presbyterian Church is dated 10 June 1854, which we now see was the day before her death. Trying to solve the puzzle presented by the baptismal record and the death date on Mary Ella's gravestone, David and Joan Sisson, in the "Sisson Newsletter," Vol. 7, No. 1, p 8, theorized that "Mary Ella, called Ella, was born May 21, 1854. She died _______ 28, 1864, and is buried in the Old Lyons Cemetery, Lyons. She is not listed in the family Bible." I had thought that perhaps the stone cutter could not read the writing on the order for Ella's grave stone, or perhaps that the Presbyterian Church's records (which were computerized in the late 1980s) were transcribed incorrectly. It didn't help that Mary Ella was forgotten in the family Bible. Now we see that it was the gravestone that was wrong.