This happy looking pair (I love old photographs!) is my 5th Great Grandmother Katherine (Gilbert) Lapham and her older brother the Reverend David Johnson Gilbert. The Gilbert and Lapham families moved across Michigan together settling first in Washtenaw County in the late 1820s and then moving on to Kent County in the 1840s. David and Katherine were two of eleven children born to Asa and Hannah (Johnson) Gilbert. The photograph is taken from a series of articles by Homer Birch run in the Rockford Register.
Happy Hunting!
Jess
Genie Road Trip 
January 4, 2012 at 8:26 am
You’re lucky to have a photo like that (despite their sour pusses)! So nice to be able to put faces to the ancestors, isn’t it?
January 6, 2012 at 5:57 pm
Photographs are fabulous! It is great to be able to put a face on an ancestor or stranger still to see obvious family features as they move through the generations.
April 3, 2012 at 7:05 am
We very recently purchased a home which was actually moved from 12 Mile Road in Oakfield Township to the corner of 13 Mile and Ramsdell. The previous owners told us it was the oldest house in Oakfield township and that the original portion had been built,owned and lived in by the Reverend David Johnson Gilbert. I’d love to verify this information, do you have any other information on Reverend Gilbert? The photograph is amazing.
April 3, 2012 at 11:50 pm
I do have more information on David and his family. Let me contact you by email.
Cheers,
Jess
December 25, 2019 at 11:50 pm
David is my 3rd great grand father. We must be related!
Would you be willing to share the information you have for David Gilbert? Or point me in the right direction? I am especially interested in any documents showing he is a son of Asa and Hannah Gilbert.
Thank you in advance.
December 27, 2019 at 11:57 pm
I’d be happy to share. Could you send me an email at jmt [dot] trotter [at] gmail [dot] com?