Ernest ROPP's Death Notice Creates More Questions Than Answers...

Well it's been longer than a little while since I have made a post on this blog, but today was an interesting day.  First I was looking through my ROPP family notes for the first time in months. In the middle of that I actually heard from my Grandfather's sister, who I hadn't heard from in well... many, many months.  After I replied to her I had to jump on a Genealogy Webinar on a web site that I use fairly frequently, GenealogyBank.com. The speaker, Tom Kemp, mentioned having Baltimore, MD newspapers on their web site and I immediately thought. "Holy $*^& "  (yes, I think in grawlixes!) "Why didn't I think of that before"  and I jumped into a search for a marriage announcement for Ernest ROPP.

No Luck!

I didn't come up empty handed though. Take a look at what I did find....  A death Notice for Ernest ROPP from the November 13, 1960 Boston Herald:

Death Notice:
Boston Herald, November 13, 1960 Page 68

What I find interesting about this notice is that it lists his age at time of death at 51. This would mean he was born about the year 1909.  I have my Ernest's birth year as 1877 according to Ship Passenger lists, census records, etc.  But this Ernest has children, Francis D and Helen, which also correspond to the children of my Ernest.  Interesting.

I recall when looking through census information for Ernest ROPPthat I once ran into a situation where there were 2 Ernest ROPPs in the same town, probably Worcester.  Could I have a gap in my research?  Did Ernest ROPP(1877-??) have a child also named Ernest, born in 1909, who is the real father of Helen and Francis D?  That doesn't make sense either, since Helen was born (according to a birth record I was given by her daughter) in 1906.

Wait.. 1906?  I have her mother, Mattie Carolina KELLEYlisted as being born in 1895.  That would make her 10 or 11 when Helen was born.  Hrm....  Methinks me has some re-work to do here.

Any other ROPP descendants have some info they could use to shed some light on this topic. I'm clearly confused :)