Text | Gong Xiaoli
She was a little blonde girl, sleeping on the ground alone, and seeing her again 140 years later.
The artist recreates the appearance of the little girl
In May 2016, the Cana family in San Francisco dug up her crystal coffin from under the garage while renovating an old house, and the news caused a sensation in the United States, and a few months later, she was reburied under the name Miranda Eve.
It wasn't her real name, and there were no tombstones near the crystal coffin, and no clues were left to suggest her identity, as Kana's daughters called her Miranda Eve, and the name was tacitly approved.
The little girl's crystal coffin was dug out
Over the years, there is a group of people who have never given up on the mystery of her origins – who is she? Where did it come from? Why die prematurely? Will you have a happy life? Are there any relatives still alive today?
With the help of genealogy and DNA technology, she finally found her name and her relatives 140 years later.
At a home in San Francisco's Richmond district, a little girl's crystal coffin was found
Miranda Eve has countless secrets, but at least one thing is initially certain that she lives happily because her family loves her.
Just look at the elaborate attire she was buried with— she wore a yellow baptismal skirt and high ankle boots, each strand of blonde hair carefully woven with purple lavender, and a garland of rose and eucalyptus leaves on her chest.
Flowers were placed on the gorgeous clothes of the little girl
Unable to issue death certificates, the government was unable to dispose of Miranda Eve's remains. Kana found David, who created the Innocent Home, a nonprofit organization that specializes in burying childless people.
David and the team make a new coffin for the little girl
With David's help, Miranda Eve was buried that summer in Colmar Greengrass Memorial Park, just south of San Francisco.
Coffin Kiuchi-sato
The new coffin was decorated with white roses, a local Catholic institution prepared a traditional funeral for her, and dozens of people on the scene held roses to send her off and sprinkled petals all over the coffin.
The little girl's heart-shaped granite tombstone reads:
"Miranda Eve
This kid loves the whole world
If no one is sad, no one will remember. ”
The other side was empty, waiting for her real name to be engraved.
David, the experts, and the zealous masses formed Miranda Eve's family search group.
The day before the funeral, a biology professor at the University of California removed some of Miranda Eve's hair.
Soon, the cause of the little girl's death was confirmed—she died of wasting disease, a form of severe malnutrition.
The ability to use a crystal coffin to be buried means that the little girl is at least free of food and clothing, and suffers from anabolic disease, most likely because of infection with viruses, bacteria or intestinal parasites.
It was both distressing and slightly reassuring that she did not suffer from the disease for a long time, but died in a very short time, so short that she did not even have time to receive treatment.
Test results showed that the isotopes in her hair did not have some of the treatments that were popular in the past, such as morphine, mercury or cocaine.
Before the little girl's funeral, the specialist conducts a final examination
Another group of people are looking for the origin of the little girl.
The only clue is to find the little girl's land.
At the Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley, a map of the 1865 San Francisco Cemetery development plan was found.
Planning map of Qiyou Cemetery
It turned out that the land where the Kana family was located was a cemetery in 140 years, named Qiyou.
By the beginning of the 20th century, with the development of the city, the cemetery as a whole was relocated, and the crystal coffin of the little girl was somehow forgotten.
Two to three years old, girls, died 140 to 150 years ago, Qiyou Cemetery, determined this information, genealogy has a place to play, genealogy, in fact, is the Chinese family tree.
Genealogists looked up census, birth, marriage, property and death records from more than a century, tracking every family that may have had a child die.
Existing cemetery records and archived obituarys have also been used as reference materials.
David found some information about the little girl's family
"You can track their families through various articles and census records, and you can understand who they are and what their lives are like." David said the entire search took six months for three members of the search team.
"Every child should have a name that gives them the dignity they deserve. We will definitely find her, and we will not give up on her. David said.
Eventually, the identity of the little girl came to light.
By overlapping the Odd Friends Cemetery with the current map, the researchers analyzed Edith's potential identity
Her name was Edith Howard Cook, born in San Francisco on November 28, 1873, the second child of Horazo Nelson Cook and his wife.
She died on 13 October 1876 and was buried in the family cemetery of Chiyou Cemetery on 15 October 1876.
Through genealogy, one traces up to Edith's biological parents and down to 82-year-old Peter Cook, who may be the grandson of Edith's brother Milton Cook.
However, Peter Cook did not know the genealogy of his father's generation, let alone whether his grandfather had a sister who died prematurely.
The key step in recognizing relatives is DNA pairing.
Biomolecular engineering experts mapped Edith's DNA and chemical isotopes.
Because she lay in a crystal coffin for more than 140 years, only 10 percent of the DNA sequences extracted from her hair belonged to herself. Most of the rest comes from fungi or other organisms.
But this is not difficult for biologists, after all, studying the DNA of ancient humans and long-haired mammoths is their daily job.
The search team also took samples of Peter Cook's saliva.
A comparison revealed that 12.5 percent of the dna genomes of the two men were identical, including those that only the DNA of immediate offspring would match.
The two are related by blood, and the evidence is conclusive.
"I found a relative I had never met and knew nothing about. I'm old and she'll always be a child, forever. Cook said.
As genealogical investigations progressed, the vast family behind Edith was revealed.
Edith's Cook family was famous in San Francisco in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Edith's mother, the Scofi family, was one of the first pioneers to come to San Francisco during the gold rush and made money selling oysters.
Edith's grandfather, Matthew, was from England and her grandmother was from Canada. The couple had seven children and moved to San Francisco a few years later than the Scofi family.
In 1860, Matthew founded a company with his son (Edith's father) to trade in leather and butter.
After Matthew's death, Edith's father continued to run the company with his sons Milton and Clifford (Edith's two brothers), which was not acquired by the San Diego Rubber Company until 1994.
Newspaper reports of Edith's sister were frequent
Because of her well-off family, Edith's sister, Essel Cook, has been making an appearance in San Francisco high society, often showing pictures of her in the newspapers and praising her beauty: "She is undoubtedly a very striking woman with blond hair and blue eyes, with fluffy hair, a good figure, and a very artistic dress. ”
The more information one learns about a hundred years ago, the more regrettable it becomes that Edith's early death.
This may be the charm of searching for roots and ancestors, people are looking for Edith's relatives, in fact, they also pin their desire to pursue their own roots.
Advertised by the Cemetery Relocation Company at the end of the 19th century
According to historians, San Francisco ushered in a new round of development in the early twentieth century, when the bodies of old cemeteries were exhumed and moved to the west closer to the sea to make way for mass migration.
During the relocation of the cemetery, Edith was left in place due to backward surveying techniques.
Fortunately, Edith's identity eventually came to light, and her real name appeared on the tombstone.
Edith's new tombstone
"The most surprising thing is that everyone is providing pro bono services for this family search. People want to solve this mystery and find family for the little girl, and this emotion seems contagious. David said.
This is reminiscent of the movie "Dream Quest", once completely forgotten, the undead will completely dissipate.
Perhaps it is because of this that people are so eager to write Edith's story. Maybe in the next hundred years, some people will remember the stories that have faded in time.
What is life and what is death. Forgetting is death, remembering is life.
Don't disappear because of our oblivion, this may be the best blessing of the living to the dead!
Resources
fox2:preserved child found in glass coffin under san francisco home id'd
fox2:sister of preserved girl in coffin was high society san francisco beauty
latimes：mystery solved: remains of girl in forgotten casket was daughter of prominent san francisco family
hefty: secret of girl who died 140 years ago finally revealed
facebook:“ i once was lost, but now i'm found”