I have a silver bowl from London in the 1750's when George II was king that I'm trying to figure out the "history" of. My mother died when I was 3 and it's a hand-me-down from her. There's a "note" about its English origins in her handwriting on the back of a list of her wedding gifts she needed to write thank you notes for :-) She and my father were married December 7, 1940.

The mystery is there's an engraving on it, initials and a date range of 25 years so it's probably a wedding anniversary gift but the engraving is FJM & JM, July 25, 1872-1897 and I have no "M" people in my genealogy and the dates match nothing/no one either. I only have two lines around at that time (my great grandparent's era, recipients would have been born around 1850) that would have been wealthy enough to have given/received such a thing.

I worked hard this morning thinking it might have been a gift meant to be given but that someone died before the party (gruesome thought) so my ancestors just "kept" the bowl in the family instead of giving it to the intended couple. But the "M" name I thought it could be didn't pan out. Loved researching other people's lines I don't care about to see if they're the possible recipients, LOL.