The Story of the Christening Dress

This post is all about a special dress.

 A Christening dress that was given to me by my mom,years ago,which was given to her by my Great Grandma.

 A list of relatives have been christened in the dress. What I didn't know,was as I was going through old paperwork, I found a little note, written in my Great Grandmas handwriting about where it came from.

According to the note , it was given to her by a sea captains wife and she writes the name of the ship(I could read the only the  first and last few letters).It says the dress was over 100 years old, and was from India. I started to search, first for the correct name of the ship. I was able to find a New York Herald entry(shipping news), dated 1872, with ship name (Coriuga), captain (Bogart)and port(Calcutta to Boston). Once I knew it was correct, the real search began. Now remember this captain is no relation to me or my family. I know-I get obsessed!
  Here is a copy of his seaman's certificate that he signed at age 20. It actually has a physical description of him and is signed by him on Jan. 19, 1855. Hard to read, but it says he was 5'9", light complexion,light hair and blue eyes.Amazing they have all this available on the internet and Ancestry.com.

 That's all I need to be off on a little mystery. As most of you know I love genealogy.

I was able to create a time line of his life , his wife, his daughter and where he lived and died.

 I'm not able to figure out when the dress was actually given to my Great Grandma, but I'm sure it was after the Captains death. Here is his obituary.

Annie was older then my Great Grandma and had only 1 daughter. Maybe daughter Emma was  christened in it and maybe they were friends. The connection is Maine where Annie's relatives lived and was the home of my Great Grandparents.When my Grandfather was born , I like to think Annie gave it to her, to pass it on. It was passed on-at least 7 more babies were christened in it-including my brother,cousins, Uncle and Grandfather.. My Mom always said I was too chubby to fit into the arms.But she gave it to me.

I feel like my Great Grandma left this little note as a clue. Here is a photo of Great Grandma and me.

Thank you Great Grandma for writing what you knew about the history of the dress. I was totally obsessed with this over the weekend. I will leave all this new information with the dress. When I pass it down it will have it's own history.
  I'm joining Tweak It Tuesday. Please go check out some wonderful projects.
  Spring is in the air around here! I'm off to paperwork, cleaning and hopefully finish my little crafty projects. Hope you have a wonderful week.
Leslie