Beerbower Family (Click for Family Tree)

Any family historian lucky enough to find a batch of photos is likely to find some in that batch that are not labeled, or have incomplete labels. Sometimes a photo might include just a first name, or a place, or a date- frustratingly often just one of these, or just nothing. After all, the original owner knew who all the people were, so why put names on them??

Tuesday’s Tip: Study each photo individually to glean as much information as possible, but also look at the photo in context with others found with it, and others you may have.

These photos were in the Fannie Belle Brown Chapman Collection. The family believes these were friends and/or schoolmates of Fannie and her sister Ida, and hope that they can find descendants and give them the images. (Contact us if you are related!)

So how does one sort out who is who?

1. Keep collections or boxes, envelopes, scrapbooks, etc. of photos together; include the negatives if you have them.
2. Making a scan or taking a picture of them all laid out in the order you received them might be helpful.
3. If you are scanning a scrapbook, scan each page and number accordingly, then scan individual photos at a higher resolution. This will help keep the images in context.
4. Label your scans appropriately. Include the name of the collection, side of the family, type of image, and anything you can add to help ID the photo. An example of a file name for the above picture might be:Year_four digit month/day_SPEERY_Lizzie_fm Fannie Belle Brown Chapman Collection_tintypeThis will ‘automagically’ sort your images by date and person; I use individual family folders and when people become adults, they get a new folder with the two names:CHAPMAN_Unknown- BROWN_Fannie BelleI usually put the husband’s name first, as adult records are generally under that name for both of them.
5. Now that you have familiarized yourself with the collection as you scanned the images, and have a record of their context, look at each image carefully. Look at them in a variety of lights, and tilt them in the light to see if you can find any markings on them- both pencil and ink fade over time, but sometimes the ‘graphite’ of a pencil will glisten if angled just right in the light, or there may be an impression where the writer pressed hard. Enlarge your digital images- sometimes the camera will pick up something your eye did not.
6. Write down everything you know about the image, using metadata, and a text file that has the same name as the photo but ends in ‘.txt.’ (TextWrangler is a good text app for Macs.)
7. Look for clues in the photos. For example, the above photo was labeled as, “Lizzie Speery.” Looking at other photos, there was another, older Lizzie in the group:

   

   It is hard to read the writing, but this photo definitely says, “Lizzie”- maybe ‘Hines’? Then it looks like the name of a city, and possibly ‘NY” after.

   Think about the context- two Lizzies, the only person to have 2 photos in the collection. Different last names, but the first image was a young girl, the second a mature woman, and the different last name is likely a married name.

   Could these Lizzies be the same person with some years in between photos? Take a look at her eyes, chin, nose- what do you think? (Let us know in the comments.)

8. Try to date the photos by dress, type of image, etc. Maureen Taylor, “The Photo Detective,” has excellent books, webinars, classes, speaks at genealogy conferences, and will even do video/phone consults; there are other resources as well to help determine approximate time periods. In the case of our two Lizzies, dating each photo might help us determine if they could possibly be the same person. Lizzie might have been a childhood friend or a distant cousin, possibly who moved away, but then the women exchanged photos in later years?
9. If there is information available about a photo studio on the back of the image, use Google to try to learn when and where the photographer was in business to give you clues. They often changed the backs of photos as they added a partner or one moved on, or just to update their look or logo. Sometimes images on eBay can even help one determine the years a photo studio was in business, giving you another clue to time period.
10. Crowd-source your detective hunt by posting your unknown photos on a blog, a website such as DeadFred, Facebook, etc.And, as always, keep copies of your photos and the description file on your own computer or media- online services may not be here forever, some use proprietary software that will not be readable in the future, etc. (Text (.txt) files  should be readable for a long time.) This is redundant but redundancy is a good backup. Keep copies of all these images somewhere other than your computer- a drive you keep in a safe deposit box, give to a sibling, etc. The cloud is a good option too, but not failsafe, so always have your own copies.

Notes, Sources, and References: 

1. Fannie Belle Brown Chapman Collection, with permission.
2. Lizzie Speery apparently worked as or with a photographer.

Please contact us if you would like higher resolution images. Click to enlarge images.

Original content copyright 2013-2015 by Heritage Ramblings Blog and pmm.

download it.

Save it to your hard disk.

and maybe Use a personal genealogy program.

Randy Seaver has recently posted on his blog, Genea-Musings, about Ancestry.com and 567 databases that are no longer available to subscribers. (See his two excellent posts for details.) He did finally get an answer from Ancestry that is not very satisfactory to those serious genealogists who pay up to $300 per year for access to Ancestry’s databases. Ancestry says the databases were old and similar to newer databases, but  won’t divulge which databases were removed. Good genealogists know that similar databases may be indexed differently, presented differently, and may actually contain some unique elements, helping someone to find that elusive ancestor or record. This loss from Ancestry also really messes up those who have sources cited for these old databases- where is that same information in the new? More junk genealogy… so who needs accurate citations anyway??

Find important sources for your ancestors? Want to be able to access it at a later date?  If so, then:

1. Download it.

2. Save it to your hard drive, and buy an external drive if you need more space, or for a backup.

3. Maintain your data in a personal genealogy program that is backed up in multiple places. You could, even in this digital age, make one of your copies paper. What a concept- what’s old is new again.

Of course, there are copyright restrictions related to downloading, so check Terms of Service. Websites like Find A Grave (FAG) are an example. When saving an image from FAG after contacting the person who posted it and getting permission, an extension can be added to the file name, such as  “_permission” so that it is obvious that it was legal to download.

Our Broida family learned about saving important information the hard way too. If you have been a long-time Heritage Ramblings reader, you might remember the posts about Sarah Gitel Frank Broida who died in Denver, Colorado, in 1901. Colorado death certificates were online at one point, and the URL was saved. Unfortunately the state of Colorado decided that death certificates, including those that were over 100 years old did not need to be online, or else they wanted more revenue, and the death certificates were removed. We sent them the money and a pedigree of Gitel’s great-great-grandson- even a copy of his driver’s license!- in order to get a copy. They took our $25 (“research fee”) but did not send the certificate, saying that the certificates could only be provided to family within 1-2 generations. (It did not say that online at the time.) So, 114 years after a death, they are expecting children or grandchildren to still be alive- most likely not going to happen. That death certificate will now remain locked in their archives, useless to anyone. In the future they might use ‘non-use’ as an excuse to destroy the old documents, like some facilities have done; that non-use would be because of their own regulations. No family member has a copy that we know of, and never will. Sad.

This Ancestry removal of databases is bad timing too- Ancestry’s change to their “New Ancestry” has caused a lot of flack in the genealogy community, and many are trying to decide if they are going to stop subscribing once the new version which has missing functions, some horrendous location glitches (it changes some locations to wrong places!) and other problems, is forced on us. They have already changed the Canadian version of Ancestry overnight, without warning- maybe they expect Canadians to be too polite to fuss like those in the US. Ancestry is firm in telling US subscribers that the “new Ancestry will soon be the only Ancestry.” So users will need to make a decision as to their subscription, but unless you delete it, they will always have your tree to show to their subscribers.

I must say that I am not one of the Ancestry.com haters. I understand it is very expensive to purchase rights to such materials, maintain the databases, pay programmers, etc. Ancestry has added value to records by indexing them (not always the best but we’ll take it anyway), providing a nice, useable front end (in “Old Ancestry”), and designing ways to link records and people and places and time- pretty complex, really. I have been a long-time subscriber and have found wonderful things that have thrilled my family, and that have allowed me to tell the stories I put up on the blog. I just wish Ancestry would put more thought into projects before releasing them, would implement suggestions from actual users, not just coders, and spend less money on advertising and programming for new, young subscribers to automagically hear all their family stories. That is not how genealogy works, but I suppose their current course does make business sense.

I also hope that organizations that have partnered with Ancestry will carefully review their decisions and restrictions. I have heard that FamilySearch has deleted their free probate records now that they have shared them with Ancestry. Don’t know how to check out that claim, since I did not see those items previously, but it is a concern if true.

Thinking about leaving Ancestry? Sadly, the GEDCOM standard which is used to transfer data between genealogy programs is very old and does not copy over images or many tagged items, puts sources in the wrong place, adds duplicate people, etc. If you have Family Tree Maker, you can sync it to only one of your Ancestry trees, but it is also an Ancestry program that has gotten so much worse over the years, and likely will continue to do so since Ancestry is not very responsive to consumers. (I used their very first version and on up until I could no longer stand the problems, especially when using with a Mac. The Mac version was not fully functional and not good either in my experience.)

Keeping another tree in personal software is very time-consuming, but will help if Ancestry, which is currently for sale, makes more changes that users are not happy with, or even goes away. A new focus is their DNA and health products- another item to be wary of. Will they spend less money and time on family history while promoting these newer products? Many are not happy with their DNA products either. In our family, four DNA tests that have only one connection to a known relative (other than immediate family) is not very useful, especially when I know cousins have also taken the tests. Also, having Ancestry change ethnicity percentages a year later makes one wonder about accuracy. (They told us that the unexpectedly high Scandinavian ethnicity of many very-English users indicates Viking ancestors who settled in England or Scotland. Sorry, Ancestry- autosomal DNA is not that old.) Ancestry also dumped a lot of Y-DNA and mtDNA samples when they decided to get out of that business; they refused to let descendants have the data. So we don’t know what will happen to our Ancestry trees, and all the work that has gone into them. It might be a good plan to download a current GEDCOM of your tree from Ancestry and put it in another program, adding documents and images as you can. Download your raw DNA data as well, as it can be transferred to other companies (for a fee).

Sorry if this post sounds like an anti-Ancestry rant, but really it was more to drive home the point that protecting your work and family history is up to YOU. Don’t let the internet lose it. Don’t let companies have total control over it. So download it, save it, and put it all in another program on your hard drive where you have a bit more control. (Yes, the other program can go out of business, but what else can we do?)

And do backups. regularly, and in multiple places/formats.

Even on paper.

Notes, Sources, and References: 

1. Randy Seaver’s blog: http://www.geneamusings.com/2015/10/where-did-567-databases-n-ancestrycom.html
2.  See also Dear Myrtle’s Blog on this subject: http://blog.dearmyrtle.com/2015/10/seriously-ancestry-im-not-buying-this.html
3. Sarah Gitel (Frank) Broida and Denver resources: http://heritageramblings.net/2015/01/27/tuesdays-tip-broida-family-research-in-denver-colorado-repositories/

Please contact us if you would like higher resolution images. Click to enlarge images.

Original content copyright 2013-2015 by Heritage Ramblings Blog and pmm.

Broida Family (Click for Family Tree)

Incredible resources spring up on a daily basis, whether they are just becoming available online or whether they are just now showing up in my search results. A  recent find is the University of Denver’s “Digital DU.”

Some of our Broida family went to Denver around 1900 (John and Gitel Broida, and their sons Joseph Broida and Harold Broida), then returned to Pittsburgh after Gitel died; Pittsburgh was where many of the family had settled earlier. (See previous posts, including this one about the Broidas in Denver.) A son who had stayed in Pennsylvania with family while his mother was ill, Theodore “Dave” Broida, married in Aurora, CO, in 1916, then lived in the Denver area and raised a family. It was puzzling why Dave moved to Denver, of all places, but the recent repository find gives us some clues. So do recent serendipitous comments when talking with the generations that were closer to the time and people.

One dear cousin who is an incredible, deep well of Broida information told me this week that Gerald Broida told her years ago that young Jewish boys used to ride the trains west, selling candy to passengers; his father, Dave Broida, was one of them. One day Dave got off the train in Denver, fell in love with the place, and decided to move there. Gerald had also commented that the 1916 wedding of Dave Broida and Lucy Shatzke was the first Jewish wedding in Arapahoe County, Colorado.

A second conversation that same night with a different family member revived her memories of Dave Broida sending the three sisters a box of 100 pieces of Double Bubble Bubble Gum from Denver occasionally during the war years, when food and candy was rationed. Bubble gum used latex rubber for its chewiness, but rubber and manufacturing facilities were needed more for tires for jeeps and military trucks, gaskets, seals, inflatable vests, etc., so bubble gum was hard to come by in the mid 1940s. The young girls rationed out their sweet treasure of bubble gum from their great-uncle, and no doubt were envied by friends. “Dave and Lucy [Broida] were in the candy business” she said also, and the light bulb went on. Here was more information to corroborate that Dave had been one of the young boys selling candy on a train as they were off to see the world. A rest stop in Denver with the clean air (compared to polluted Pittsburgh) and beautiful mountains even higher than those of Pennsylvania may have made him realize he had found the home for his heart. He would have had knowledge of candy wholesalers to buy his wares for the train, so getting into the candy business later would have been logical.

In the 1920 US Federal Census, however, Dave was mistranscribed as being a ‘machinist’ but is actually a ‘merchant’ in the furniture business.

The next US census, in 1930,  lists Theodore D. Broida as a salesman for novelty goods. That could be candy and all those impulse items at the register. A 1940 census entry has not yet been found for the family, but would be very useful. City directories or newspapers might have more information to verify Dave’s occupation, so a Google search was next. The search found The West End Press article above. While about G. Broida being in a wrestling tourney at a weight of 145 pounds (he was 17 then), Gerald Broida was Dave and Lucy’s son. The link led to “Digital DU.”

There are 633 hits on The West End Press at “Digital DU” but “Broida” does not have any hits, so either the search engine does not go into pages of the newspaper, or else I haven’t figured out how to use the website. (There is an advanced search and even a how-to, but still no Broida results though we know there is at least one mention in the newspaper.) A note to the digital librarian may help, so that is on the agenda. Looking through other areas of the site, however, showed more interesting areas to peruse. There is a “Special Collections and Archives” section that provided more clues to our family story. Apparently Denver, as suspected, was a location that a lot of people with ‘consumption’ (tuberculosis), such as Gitel Broida, moved to, looking for a cure for their disease. It became a problem for Denver to grow so fast, and more sanitariums were founded to serve those who needed medical care. The Digital DU website lists the “Jewish Consumptives Relief Society Records” from the organization founded by Eastern European Jewish men in 1904 (so too late for Broida records), many of whom had the disease themselves. (See image of Patients Undergoing Heliotherapy– likely Gitel Broida underwent the same treatment years earlier.) The Jewish population of Denver was growing and thriving as well, and the Special Collections and Archives contain Jewish artifacts as well as documents.

This website appears to be worth investigating further, especially how to navigate and search more effectively.

Searching nearby universities and their digital libraries is a great resource for family historians- otherwise, how would we have known that Gerald Broida weighed 145 lbs. in 1945 and wrestled in a Jewish league?

Notes, Sources, and References: 

1) 1930 US Federal Census for Joseph Shatzke, head of household- Year: 1920; Census Place: Aurora, Adams, Colorado; Roll: T625_155; Page: 18B; Enumeration District: 8; Image: 207. Ancestry.com. 1920 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2010. Images reproduced by FamilySearch.

2) 1930 US Federal Census for Theodore Broida, head of household- Year: 1930; Census Place: Denver, Denver, Colorado; Roll: 232; Page: 2B; Enumeration District: 0220; Image: 1045.0; FHL microfilm: 2339967. Ancestry.com. 1930 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2002.

3) Jewish Consumptives Relief Society Records – http://digitaldu.coalliance.org/fedora/repository/codu:32554

Patients undergoing heliotherapy- http://digitaldu.coalliance.org/fedora/repository/codu:60066

4) Special Collections and Archives- http://digitaldu.coalliance.org/fedora/repository/codu%3A17451

5) The West End Press article- http://digitaldu.coalliance.org/fedora/repository/codu%3A55006/B121.02.0010.0006.00016_access.pdf/access

6) Denver University’s Digital DU– http://digitaldu.coalliance.org

Please contact us if you would like higher resolution images. Click to enlarge images.

Original content copyright 2013-2015 by Heritage Ramblings Blog and pmm.

(Click for Family Tree)

Today is a good opportunity to thank the individuals and organizations who so generously share their resources with others. The above obituaries are available as part of the Pittsburgh Jewish Newspaper Project found at http://digitalcollections.library.cmu.edu/pjn/index.jsp.

Although these periodicals are no longer published, these articles are still under copyright, since they were published after 1923. A reply to my email to Carnegie Mellon University concerning permission to publish let me know that CMU just ‘facilitate[s] electronic access’, and she forwarded information about Rodef Shalom Congregation in Pittsburgh, the copyright holder. Their archivist thanked me for asking permission- we all know so many do not- and gave me the right to publish these newspaper clips to help tell the story of our family. She also said,

“We would like as many people as possible to discover, as you have, this rich resource, which includes information applicable to areas way beyond Western PA.”

(She did ask me to cite the articles with at least the name of the project and link as above, which many genealogists do not, sadly.)

What a wonderful mission for an organization! Knowledge should be free for all. While I do recognize the costs of archiving, digitizing, developing and maintaining websites, etc., and thus do not mind paying for a website to aggregate large amounts of data for easy searching, such as Ancestry.com, free use of old material is a refreshing concept. It will help us learn more about our past, and thus help us navigate our future.

Thank you, Rodef Shalom Congregation, CMU, and all the other organizations who freely share their treasures!

Notes, Sources, and References: 

1) See citation on image.

2) Email correspondence 04/02/2015 and 04/07/2015.

Please contact us if you would like higher resolution images. Click to enlarge images.

Original content copyright 2013-2015 by Heritage Ramblings Blog and pmm.

➡ Beerbower Family

Tuesday’s Tip: Contact the local historical society where your ancestors lived. They may have a treasure trove of family information!

We were very lucky because the Marion County Historical Society (MCHS) found and contacted us through the blog. Our Beerbower family lived in Marion County, Ohio for a number of generations, and a Beerbower family bible was donated to the Society, along with photographs that were found inside. The MCHS is planning an exhibit and they would like to learn more about the Beerbower family.

Alas, like so many photos, there are no names nor dates on the majority of the images (though we are lucky with this one). We are putting these images up on the blog in hope that someone will recognize some of these folks, and let us know. The MCHS has kindly shared all the images of Beerbowers and Bible pages to help us piece together more of our family history.

This Bible is known as the Samuel T. Beerbower Bible. Samuel was the brother of our direct ancestor, Edgar Peter Beerbower, who married Anna Missouri Springsteen. He was thus an uncle to Anna May Beerbower, who married Gerard William Helbling. (If you are a grandchild of May and GW, Samuel would be your great-great uncle.) See the Beerbower Family Tree on the blog for more information.

So who are the people in this image?

Known Data:

Clue #1– The image was found in the front of the Bible.

Clue #2– The Bible the picture was found in is called the Samuel T. Beerbower Bible.

Clue #3– The reverse of the image notes the photographer as “Wm. H. Moore, Third Story, Bennett’s Block, Marion, Ohio.”

Clue #4– “1878” is handwritten on the reverse of the photo.

Clue #5– The image shows a man and a woman.

Analysis:

Clue #1– The image was probably of two people very important and/or closely related, to the family, since it was in the front of the Bible. That would often be parents.

Clue #2– Although the bible is called the Samuel T. Beerbower Bible, the notations inside suggest it may have been the Bible of Nathan Peters, Samuel’s father-in-law, and passed down to Irene L. Peters, Samuel’s wife. There are mostly Peters family member listed, and just a few Beerbowers. Instead, it may have been Irene’s Bible into which she copied the names from her father’s Bible.

Clue #3– Research on this photographer indicates he was a daguerreotypist 1857-60 and had studios in Cinncinnati 1857-97 and Marion 1859-97. There was also a “Moore’s Photographic Gallery” on Bennet’s Block in Marion, but no date noted. The History of Marion County, Ohio, 1883, notes that his Bennet Block studio was established in 1855, and at the time of the writing of the county history, published in 1883, he had moved to Main Street. If a photographer had a large stock of backings, this one may have been still used after moving to the new location, but for now, we will use 1855-1883 as the time range for the Bennet location.

Checking for W. H. Moore in Marion city directories will help to narrow the time frame a bit.

Clue #4– It is unknown who added the date to the photo. The date does fit with the known dates of the photographer’s location. The photo appears to be a ‘cabinet card’ which was introduced in the early 1870s, so the date of 1878 still is very plausible. Analyzing the style of clothing and hairstyles may help to narrow the date range of the image.

Clue #5– The man and woman in the image are posed as married persons are often posed. They appear to be in their 30s-50s.

My hypothesis (which remains to be proven) is that the first image is Nathan Peters with his wife, probably his second wife, Mary Ballantine Peters. They married on 02 Jan 1842, and Irene L. Peters, their daughter, was the Bible owner at one point.

Mary B. Peters died on 18 Dec 1850, however, so could not have been in a photo taken by WH Moore, since his business started in 1855. I am wondering if this could be a copy of an earlier photo, possibly a daguerrotype; this appears to be the case with another photo in the collection. Nathan would have been 79 in 1878, so that would be older than the man in this picture, thus reinforcing the idea this is a copy of an older image.

We have no evidence that Nathan remarried after the death of his second wife. Censuses show some of his children living with him on the farm in his later years, plus a servant for the household and a farm laborer, but no wife is listed. (We have been unable to find him in the 1850 census, although his 1850 Agriculture Schedule is available.)

Note the cheekbones and jawline of the man in the couple picture, and his ears- they look somewhat similar to the drawn portrait of Nathan that was in the county history, which might vary somewhat as it was an artist’s conception of a photo. The hairline and brow seem similar, too.

The Bible has mostly Peters information, and very little on the Beerbowers, so that is another clue that suggests this first image in the Bible might be Nathan Peters and wife.

What do you think?

It is so wonderful that Historical Societies and scholars are finally working with family historians- that is the only way to tell the whole story of history.

And please, if you know anything about the couple in this image, contact us!

Notes, Sources, and References:

1) Image courtesy of the Marion County Historical Society.

2) Ohio Photographers: 1839-1900 by Diane VanSkiver Gage, Carl Mautz Publishing, Jan 1, 1998. https://books.google.com/books?id=LChcvLOmf-UC&pg=PA81&lpg=PA81&dq=Wm.+H.+Moore+photographer+marion+oh&source=bl&ots=_MClGo0rAD&sig=XL9n5rCyt7z-j3m1tpdO68C8XVk&hl=en&sa=X&ei=nJb-VOX0IoiUNtPXgfAI&ved=0CC8Q6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=Wm.%20H.%20Moore%20photographer%20marion%20oh&f=false

3) “History of Marion County, Ohio,” Leggett, Conaway, 1883, p226. https://archive.org/details/historyofmarionc00legg

4) Family Tree of Anna May Beerbower:  http://heritageramblings.net/family-trees/the-helbling-beerbower-springsteen-family/

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Original content copyright 2013-2015 by Heritage Ramblings Blog and pmm.

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