(Part 1 tells the background of a quilt inscribed with many names, and how I started my search for the details of its history.)
Families with several children have been most useful for narrowing down the dates. The Dorchesters, Chester O. and Edith G. nee Kimball, for example. Their daughter Alice Jean was born in 1896, and her name is on the quilt. Their son Kenneth was born in 1899 and is not on the quilt. Similarly, Eva and Harry Thompson's daughter Virginia, born in 1891, is on the quilt, as is their son Kenneth, born in March 1897.
Between the Pickles (their story is in Part 1), the Dorchesters, and the Thompsons, I had pretty quickly placed the date between later in 1897 and sometime in 1898. I will toot my own horn and say that my first guesstimate on the age of this quilt was late 1800s or early 1900s, or perhaps an older top that was finished some years later. This was based on the old-fashioned, 19th-century-style penmanship being combined with the polka dot backing and ties rather than fancy quilting, which point to something a bit more recent.
Also, I found that the great majority of the names appear on census pages for a town called either Melrose City or Melrose. So now, I am sure the quilt was made in Massachusetts, and can add that to the search criteria.
