The Lilly Twins
A fine example of a 19th century carte-de-visite comes from a beautiful 1860s photograph taken at the Griswold & Smith studio in Columbus, Ohio. The portrait shows two young boys, roughly four or five years old, dressed in matching houndstooth trousers and dark buttoned shirts. Turn the card over, and you find a handwritten inscription: “Carl & William Lilly. my brothers. A. T.”
By combining the evidence of this portrait with historical census records, we can piece together a heartwarming, and ultimately solved, genealogical puzzle.
When looking strictly at the immediate family records of the boys' mother, Louise Frankenberg Lilly (who married into the Lilly family in September 1860), a sibling with the initials "A. T." doesn't immediately appear. Was it a cousin? A close friend?
The answer lay waiting in the 1870 Federal Census for Columbus, Franklin County, Ohio.
By 1870, the twins were 10 years old and living in a household headed by a man named John W. Andrews. Following the loss of her first husband, Louise had remarried. Listed right there in the household with the 10-year-old twins was an 18-year-old half-sister: Anna T. Andrews.
Mystery solved. "A. T." was Anna, lovingly claiming her younger half-brothers on the back of a photo she clearly cherished.
As the twins grew, the historical record shows them beginning to forge their own paths.
- Carl G. Lilly: Carl chose to stay close to his roots. By the 1880 census, a 20-year-old Carl was still residing in Columbus with his mother, Louise, working hard to establish himself as a local clerk.
- William Lilly: William's path took a different turn. By 1880, he had left the family home. Like so many adventurous young men of the post-Civil War era, William moved onward to seek new opportunities, leaving his childhood home behind but remaining forever linked to his twin through this photo.
