My goal in finding Priscilla was to find her parents Samuel and Sylvia Raymond or her sister Silvia (Raymond) McConihe. I have no idea which cemetery they are buried in, but was hoping they might be with Priscilla. However, I was not able to find them in our brief visit.
I have mentioned before that I feel there must be a connection to Harlows, Shaws, and Ellis surnames with either Sylvia (Dunham) Raymond or Samuel Raymond as they named some of their children with these middle names. In some of Sylvia's children's death records, her maiden name is listed as Shaw. I have been going by her marriage record, which lists her maiden name as Dunham, assuming that to be more accurate as she probably recorded her name herself. Of course there is always a possibility of error, so I am keeping both options open for her maiden name. I did notice around Priscilla and Zephania's headstones other stones with the names of Harlow and Shaw. I took some pictures and made some connections between this Harlow family and Shaw family that is buried around them, but I still have not been able to connect them to either Samuel or Sylvia.
Located in the same area of Priscilla and Z. Ellis were many Harlow headstones. I looked into vital records on familysearch.org to try to understand their relationship, and I came up with the following. William Harlow died in 1793 and is buried at the Cemetery at the Green with his wife, Hannah Bartlett.
I was also able to find 5 of their children also buried here:
William and Hannah Harlow also had at least two other children, Hannah and Ephraim, but I did not see their headstones. Hannah Harlow's married Josiah Clarke, and it is very possible I missed their headstones as I was not looking for Clarkes at this time. Their daughter (William Harlow's granddaughter), Deborah Clarke; however, is buried close to the Harlow family at the cemetery. The Shaw connection comes along when William's granddaughter, Deborah Clarke, marries Elijah Shaw.
Deborah and Elijah Shaw had four children that I found in the records, at least one of which, Elijah Shaw, is also buried at this cemetery:
The Elijah Shaw that marries Deborah would have been about the same age as my Sylvia (Dunham) Raymond. Since there is some evidence that Sylvia could be a Shaw, I looked at Elijah's family to see if he maybe had a sister Sylvia born around Sylvia's birth year. Elijah Shaw's parents are Elijah Shaw and Phebe Sampson. I checked some family trees on ancestry.com to quickly see if there was a Sylvia born to this couple. According to these family trees, they did have many children, but none named Sylvia. This obviously is not proof that Sylvia was not a child of theirs, I will want to find a probate record of Elijah to see if there is any mention of Sylvia or any Dunhams. I would also need to go a step further back and look to see if Elijah had any brothers that had children named Sylvia. I realize this is a reach, as I have not even looked at probate and land records for the Dunhams in Plymouth County, but I will eventually do that too. Maybe there is a Dunham out there that married a Shaw in Middleboro and Plymouth area. I have not found one yet, but that might explain why Shaw was listed as Sylvia's maiden name, maybe it was her mother's maiden name.
I am guessing someday I will find the connection between these families and perhaps Sylvia (Dunham) Raymond, but so far I have not. I did notice in the Cemeteries in Southeastern MA book, there is a small cemetery in Plymouth with many Harlows, Ellis, and Shaws buried together. That will be another stop next time we are in the area.
