The Mummy May Return

Janice sends news that DNA tests will be conducted on the famous mummy of Concord, N.H.

The testing could allow Charles Peavey to put the mummy, dubbed Baby John and believed to be about 90 years old, back in it[s] glass display case in the Peavey living room.

The mummy has been held at the state medical examiner's office in Concord since police confiscated it last year. Earlier this month a judge ordered Peavey to bury Baby John because there was no evidence that it was a member of the Peavey family. [Link]

Hmm, as long as it's a relative you can display a corpse in your living room? That's good to know.

In related news, 92-year-old Rita Rich has some theories about the identity of a mummified infant found under the floorboards of her childhood home in Toronto wrapped in a newspaper from 1925. She's quite sure it wasn't the child of her aunt Della, with whom she lived.

For one thing, Della was certain she could never become pregnant. If she had by some miracle become pregnant, she would have had no reason to hide the baby, says Rich.

Besides, Rich adds, except for a few weeks in summer when she went to visit relatives in the U.S., Rich was always with Della.

It would have been impossible for Della to carry a baby to term without Rich noticing.

Nor does she think the baby was her father's (he didn't date after her mother died), or the boarder's ("He was a perfect gentleman, and if he had gotten a girl pregnant, would have married her").

Rich thinks it's possible the baby may have belonged to Della's much younger sister, Alla Mae, a beautiful, blue-eyed blonde, who would have been in her early 30s in 1925. [Link]

I Love Mummies in the Springtime

Some people travel to Washington, D.C., in April to see the cherry blossoms. One Genealogue reader traveled there to see the mummified remains of a possible relative.

Nancy Cunningham writes that she was involved in the investigation of the Boy in the Iron Coffin, and even went to visit "Little Willy" last year (more photos here).

Nancy is descended from undertaker Mathias White, who was at one point thought to be William's father.

Man Loses His Mummy

Janice notified me of this update to last year's mummy story.

A probate court judge yesterday said state officials can bury the infant's decades-old remains because Peavey hasn't proven his claim that he and the mummy are kin.

Peavey, 42, of Concord, has 30 days to appeal that decision, but he said yesterday he won't.

"I'm just washing my hands of it," said Peavey, who said he skipped the court hearing because he can't afford the DNA tests needed to prove kinship. "I'm disappointed it came to this." [Link]

No Merit Badge for Mummy-Slaying

A Cub Scout pack in Libertyville, Illinois, will be placing flags on the graves of veterans on Saturday. It won't be as scary as some had feared.

When the Memorial Day service project was first announced not all Cub Scouts were enthusiastic. To some, it sounded spooky because their only knowledge of cemeteries came from Halloween lore.

"A first-grade boy wasn't sure he wanted to be involved. He kept asking his mom 'when are we going to see mummies,'" [Judy] Zemeske recalled. "When we got to Lakeside he was greatly relieved and delighted there were no mummies. He had never been to a cemetery before." [Link]

[tagged: genealogy, family tree, ancestry]

Mummy Dearest

The New Hampshire mummy story has inspired the most watched video at CNN.com. Charles Peavey insists he is "not a freak," and I am inclined to believe him. Until I'm reminded that he cuddled a mummified baby and gave it a pet.

[tagged: genealogy, family tree, ancestry]

A Genealogist Who Loves His Mummy

Charles Peavey of Concord, New Hampshire, was distressed when the police came and took away his mummified baby last week. After all, it was part of the family.

Of all the stories surrounding the mummy's birth and death, Peavey favors the one that says he's an ancient relative - the stillborn son of a great-great uncle. He calls the mummy "Baby John." Through DNA testing, a forensic anthropologist will be able to determine whether that theory is plausible.

"I've always treated him as a family member," said Peavey, a cook at a Hooksett restaurant who spends his free time tracing his family history. "And I'll be disappointed if he's not." [Link]

Peavey's family had given the baby gifts: "ceramic angels, antique marbles, a quartz candle holder and a dried but once-living beta fish. (It was supposed to be the mummy's pet.)"

Police learned of the mummy's existence when Peavey's 4-year-old great-niece told a day-care bully, "Be careful. My uncle's a killer. He has a dead baby."

[tagged: genealogy, family tree, ancestry]

Putting Your Ancestors to Work

From The Arizona Republic:

Mummies in Mexico: It's a living

Chris Hawley
Republic Mexico City Bureau
Nov. 1, 2005 12:00 AM

GUANAJUATO, Mexico - The mummified baby sits alone in a glass case, its blue sweater still buttoned against the chill of death, its pale hands resting on the disposable diaper it was buried in.

Across the room, three severed heads gaze at the wall. A little girl with the face of a zombie clutches a smiling doll, and an infant in a baptismal gown laces its gnarled fingers as if in prayer. All were evicted from the city cemetery after their families stopped paying the rent on their graves.

[snip]

As if the real mummies aren't creepy enough, the $5 admission includes a campy chamber of horrors called the Room of Death Worship, where museum workers have used real body parts to assemble skeletons of Count Dracula and other legendary undead.

[snip]

"The purpose of this museum is to help maintain the entire city," [Guanajuato Mummy Museum Director Felipe] Macías said. "It's a business by which the dead of Guanajuato are giving something back to their city."

[snip]

[Read the whole story]