Tuesday, December 3, 2013

Tombstone Tuesday - GEDDES in Mount Hope Cemetery, San Diego

I've taken quite a few semi-random pictures in the local San Diego cemeteries over the years - gravestones that I've been requested to find, gravestones that are interesting, and gravestones for early San Diego pioneers.  For the latter, I mean people who came to San Diego before 1900 and died there.

For Tombstone Tuesday this week, I'm going to post some of these that I've collected in the chance that someone will be searching for a family member and run across my blog post and think to themselves "So that's where they went!"

This week, it's George Geddes and his wife, Maria Sheran, and Maria's sister, Dicey Sheran:


The Geddes stone is one of the tallest in all of Mount Hope Cemetery in San Diego.  Here is a closeup of the inscriptions:


The inscriptions say:

GEORGE GEDDES
Born in East Liverpool Ohio
February 15, 1832
Died in San Diego, Calif.
April 29, 1892
---------------------------
MARIA SHERAN
Wife of George Geddes
Died July 31, 1908
---------------------------
DISIE SHERAN
Died July 27, 1930

In the 1880 U.S. Census, the George Geddes family resided in San Diego on Second Street (enumerated in ED 68, page 541C, dwelling #48, family #51, on NARA T9, Roll 72).  The household included:

*  Geo. Geddes - white, male, age 47, married, a Miner, born Ohio, father born Virginia, mother born Pennsylvania
*  Maria Geddes - white, female, age 32, wife, married, keeping house, born England, father born England, mother born England
*  Dicey Sherran - white, female, age 21, sister-in-law, at home, born Australia, father born England, mother born England.

In the 1900 U.S. Census, the Mariah S. Geddes family resided at 1307 Seventh in San Diego Ward 4, (enumerated in ED 194, Sheet 5B, Dwelling #115, Family #145, NARA T623, Roll 9):

*  Mariah S. Geddes - head, white, female, born Aug 1847, age 52, widow, 0 children born, born England, parents born England, immigrated in 1867, US resident for 33 years, no occupation, owns home free of mortgage.
*  Eliza D. Sheran - sister, white, female, born Apr 1862, age 38, single, born Australia, parents born England, immigrated in 1867, US resident for 33 years, no occupation.

One can draw some hypotheses from this information - that Maria and Dicey were sisters, their family moved from England to Australia between 1848 and 1859, and came to California in 1867.  George and Maria probably married between 1867 and 1880.

This is not my family, and I have no other information about them.  The San Diego newspapers for this time period are on GenealogyBank, and there may be stories and obituaries for George, Maria and Dicey that tell more about their lives.  There probably are birth records for Maria and Dicey in England and Australia, respectively.

The URL for this post is:  http://www.geneamusings.com/2013/12/tombstone-tuesday-geddes-in-mount-hope.html

Copyright (c) 2013, Randall J. Seaver



3 comments:

Geolover said...

You may wish to edit the transcript of first name in the third entry on the gravestone.

Randy Seaver said...

Thanks, I fixed it. Stuff happens! And I wrote it before I found the census records!

Geolover said...

Um, er, just as there is no 'a' in cemetery (heheheh, a constant problem but not yours!) there is no 'c' in "Disie."