99 Years of Dayton Photographers

How does anyone ever have an original idea anymore? Obviously, some people manage to do so, because new things still keep coming along. And yet, it seems like most of the time, whenever I think, “There really oughtta be X,” there already is X, and I just hadn’t found it yet.

A recent example of this phenomenon occurred to me recently, with regard to an historical listing of Dayton photographers.

For the past few months, I have been processing the Thresher-McCann manuscript collection. In addition to loose papers and scrapbooks, the collection includes 260 (yes, exactly 260 – I just finished numbering them yesterday) photographs, the majority of which are unidentified. From the very few identified ones, I have been able to “tentatively” identify some of the people in others. (I have become pretty adept at recognizing Mary and Laura Thresher, but that’s about it. I don’t know the rest of the people from Adam. Well, okay, unless it’s woman; then I don’t know her from Eve.)

However, many of the photographs have the photographer’s name, city, and sometimes street address printed on them somewhere.

Sometimes on the front:

Appleton and Hollinger (Dayton, Ohio) (ms036_0045)

.

Grossman and Owings (Dayton, Ohio) (ms036_0047)

.

Bowersox (Dayton, Ohio) (ms036_0046)

Sometimes on the back:

A. Yount (Dayton, Ohio) (ms036_0176)

.

Roger’s Portraits (Dayton, Ohio) (ms036_0048)

.

M. Wolfe (Dayton, Ohio) (ms036_0049)

And sometimes, the photorapher’s name is not even on the portrait, per se, but is written on one of those horribly acidic, construction-paper-feeling folders that old photographs are often stored in. (So if the photo came in a yucky folder or envelope, check for — and record — any useful info before casting that awful thing aside!)

I’ve actually elected to organize the unidentified photographs according to state, city, and photographer’s name, because it seemed like the most logical way to hopefully get photographs that originally went together, to remain together, not knowing who any of the people are.

As archivists know, one of the tasks in describing materials is to (hopefully) identify the date(s) of the materials, either from a given date (woohoo! I love when things are already dated!) or to make an educated guess if possible (which you would either put in brackets and/or add some relative words — e.g., circa, about, approximately, before, after, etc.).

So, putting those last two paragraphs together, you get the thought that kept going through my mind : Man, it would be awesome if I had an index to Dayton photographers, where I could look up the photographer’s name alphabetically and get the listings (hopefully with the different addresses of their various studios over the years), along with the dates when they operated at each location —- which could then be used to establish an approximate time frame for the photograph(s) in question.

Once I finished organizing the photographs, I finally got around to checking the library catalog to see whether we already owned such a book. Failing that, I was going to ask around to my co-workers and Dayton archives colleagues, to find out whether such a thing existed (and maybe Dayton library just didn’t have it for some reason). And failing THAT, I was prepared to roll up my sleeves, cozy up with the Dayton city directories, and produce the thing myself.

Well, lo and behold — the thing does already exist. Of course. Ha!  I’m not sorry that someone has already done all that work for me; it’s just another one of those things — it figures that this awesome idea was already had by someone — apparently Richard D. Fullerton…before I was even born. Ha!

The index I am referring to is 99 Years of Dayton Photographers (1982) by Richard D. Fullerton.

We have several copies of the book at the Dayton Metro Library — unfortunately for you who may wish to borrow it, they are all non-circulating, so you’ll have to use it in the library (all copies live at Main) [but some other local libraries have it too] — so I retrieved one and set about trying to narrow down a time frame for some of the undated Dayton photographs (such as those above).

The book has a helpful introduction. Fullerton lists the sources that he used (including city directories, census records, photographs themselves, and others), and he also cites those sources throughout the book, to tell where he got a particular piece of information about a name, date, or location.

Fullerton also gives information in the introduction about the approximate years of use for different kinds of photographs, also identifying the photo process’s hey day, which can help with dating photographs as well.

Having archival training and a copy of Ritzenthaler & Vogt-O’Connor’s photo preservation book, aka my photo archives Bible, I already had a pretty good idea of those approximate time periods. But, it was a great idea to include them, since some photographers worked for many years in Dayton (*cough*Bowersox*cough*), and so simply having the dates of the shop didn’t narrow it down much.

Between knowing which types of photographs were popular when, and having access to Fullerton’s book, I was able to established somewhat more useful dates — okay, anything is more useful than “Undated” — for the Dayton imprint photographs. Now, unfortunately, most of the unidentified photos in the collection weren’t actually made in Dayton, so Fullerton’s book can’t help me with those.

I don’t suppose anyone knows of a book like this for Cincinnati?

In any event, I am pleased that I found the Fullerton book. It definitely saved me a lot of work. (Now, don’t get me wrong, a bunch of completely unidentified photographs don’t usually warrant searching all those city directories just to get a slightly-more-useful-than-”undated” date that I can stick in a finding aid. I mean all the work that I would have done creating an index of long-lasting usefulness — like Fullerton did!)

One more thing : Even having those narrower dates isn’t necessarily all that helpful to me, someone who doesn’t know the names or the faces of the unidentified people. I think it would be a lot more useful to genealogists — if you have a photo, and you know who it is, but you’re wondering, “How old is great-great-grandma in this picture?” Or, “Could that be Great-Uncle James? Was he even still alive then?” Or….you get the idea. But hey, sometimes having a place and an approximate date and a location could narrow down the other unknowns quite a lot for you, depending on how your family history played out.

Anyhow, I hope you enjoyed this little jaunt into one of my “there should really be…if there’s not, I’m so going to…oh wait, there already is…okay, good…using that now” moments.

Historical local directories at the Dayton Metro Library

After reading “City and County Directories: Hidden Treasures” on the Ohio Historical Society’s Collections Blog, I was inspired to share some details about the historical local directories available in the Local History and Genealogy departments at the Dayton Metro Library, where I work.

Early Dayton city directories in the DML Genealogy Dept.

Historical directories are useful in many ways, particularly in genealogical research, as well as research pertaining to a house, building, or business.

In all the directories, you can look up a person or business by name.

For people, the information provided generally includes name, occupation, place worked, place lived, and sometimes their spouse’s name (if any). Very old and very new directories generally tend to include only the name of the head of household, but I have noticed that many times the directory lists each adult resident of a household separately and sometimes teenagers (usually identified as “students” for their occupation).

Some uses for directories in genealogy would be to find out where your relative lived or what their occupation was. If you check every year, you will probably find that they moved or changed jobs over time. When you suddenly notice the presence or absence of that person or a spouse in a particular year, you can get clues to marriage/divorce/death/moving dates.

Keep in mind: it’s just a clue, so you must always verify! But at least it can help give you a good idea of “when” to start searching for a particular event.

Also note: just because they “disappear,” doesn’t mean they died or even that they moved very far away. Many “city” directories only include people who lived or worked within the city limits. If you moved to the suburbs, you stopped being listed in the “city” directory, unless perhaps you still worked in the city. Consider the following entry from the 1914 Dayton city directory:

• Wright, Orville, office 1127 W 3d, also Pres The Wright Co e s Coleman Av s of 3d, res Oakwood.

By 1914, Wright had moved to his new mansion Hawthorn Hill in Oakwood, but as he still had an office in Dayton, he still had an entry in the city directory.

For businesses, the information provided in directories generally includes location and type of industry (e.g., if it’s a factory, it will tell what they manufacture), usually the name of the business owner, and sometimes the names of other company officers.

As the OHS blog post stated, schools, hospitals, hotels, and many other types of buildings/businesses are also included in directories.

I like to think of directories as being like telephone books on steroids: they include basically everything you would find in a telephone book, plus more.

One of the biggest “plus more” aspects of directories is that directories eventually began to include listings that made it possible to search for a particular address and find out what was located there. In the case of Dayton city directories, the earliest year you can search by address is 1914. These listings are in the back of the directory, with street names listed alphabetically. Under each street, the numbers are listed in ascending order, with the name of the person or business next to it. If you are interested in more information about that person or business — now that you’ve found out the name — you can search for that entry in the front (alphabetical-by-name) part of the directory.

Street and Avenue Guide, Dayton city directory 1914

Being able to search by address is especially helpful for people researching the history of a house. Directories include the names of the residents of a house, as opposed to just the owner’s name that you would find on a deed.

Many times, house researchers just want to know a little about the families that lived in their home before they did. Sometimes, people think they have a ghost, and learning about the previous residents can help them figure out who might be haunting their home. In another example, I recently helped someone who had found some photographs tucked away in his historic home, and he was trying to find the family to whom the photos belonged, so he could return them.

And now that we’ve talked about some of the ways that historical local directories could be helpful in your research, I’ll give you the specifics on what we have at the Dayton Metro Library.

We have four types of historical directories, all of which are available for public use: city directories, suburban directories, Criss-Cross directories, and telephone books.

City Directories (Dayton only)

• Years 1850-Present (almost every year) available in both Genealogy Reference and Local History Reference
• Include listings within the city limits of Dayton only;
• Include people who lived within the city limits, businesses located within the city limits, and usually people who worked within the city limits;
• Includes yellow-pages-like listings for businesses by type;
• Search by address possible from year 1914-present;
• Later years can be searched by telephone number to get the person’s name.

Suburban Directories

• Years 1956-Present available in both Genealogy Reference and Local History Reference;
• Includes listings for suburban areas of Montgomery County only (areas of Montgomery County that are outside the Dayton city limits);
• More recent years are split into North and South editions;
• Search by address possible in all years;
• Search by telephone number to get the person’s name.

Criss-Cross Directories

• Years 1945-Present available in Local History Reference;
• Years 1954-Present available in Genealogy Reference;
• Similar to the search-by-street-address portion of regular city/suburban directories, but only gives street address, name, and phone number;
• Includes city of Dayton, suburban areas of Montgomery County, and some nearby areas outside of Montgomery County;
• Search by telephone number to get the person’s name.

Telephone Books

• Years 1919-Present (most years) available in Local History Reference;
• Both white pages and yellow pages available for most years;
• Includes the “Greater Dayton area” which includes city of Dayton, suburban areas of Montgomery County, and some nearby areas outside of Montgomery County;
• Cannot be searched by address.

text

The materials discussed here are available in the Magazines & Special Collections division of the Dayton Metro Library, located in the basement of the Main Library, 215 E. Third St., Dayton, OH 45402. They are available for public use anytime during regular library hours.

If you are unable to visit the library, a librarian can assist you with requests that are “clearly defined and limited in scope.” If you need a quick look-up in the directories, please submit an electronic reference question. For other questions about directories, you can contact the Dayton Metro Library or leave a note on this blog.

A visit to the Muncie, Indiana, local history library

This past weekend, I traveled to Muncie, Indiana, for a conference about CONTENTdm. The conference was on Friday and Saturday, but I went up a day early and explored Muncie (in the rain).

The first place I wanted to check out was the local history and genealogy department of the Muncie Public Library. Yes, geeky, I know.

(On a side note, I remember when I first started working at my current job, a co-worker remarked that he liked to visit other libraries while on vacation. I had never really thought about it before, but now I find myself doing the same thing. I do this especially on work trips if I have time, because that seems like a pretty good work-related activity: scope out what other libraries are doing, maybe bring home some good ideas.)

I knew from the library’s web site that I would be looking for a Carnegie library building. However, when I arrived, I got a little confused about how I was supposed to get inside, as I was parked near the back of the library, but there was this other building across the alley that had “Local History & Genealogy” etched in stone above the door (but was not attached to the Carnegie building). I tried to open the door, but it was locked. I know this place said it was open on Thursdays, I thought to myself. Then I saw a truck pull up, and a man wearing some kind of emergency responder uniform got out, and entered the locked building using a key. Hmm…that’s weird. Why would the library be locked?

I began to wander around to the front side of the Carnegie building, somehow missing the back entrance with the large “Open” sign on the door:

Muncie Public Library - Local History and Genealogy

I didn’t make it all the way to the front of the building at that particular moment, but I found out later that it wouldn’t have done any good anyway. During my later walk around town, I came back to the library from the front and noticed that you can’t get in the front doors anymore; they don’t use them (“emergency exit only”).

But let me take this opportunity to share a picture of the front of the building, because who doesn’t love a good Carnegie?

Muncie Public Library - Carnegie Library

Anyhow… So was I was about to wander around the back corner of the library towards the front, wandering if I had the wrong entrance or the wrong day (I kept thinking it was Friday for some reason, and they’re not open Friday), I heard a voice: “Ma’am…?”

I turned around, looking for the source of the voice. I saw a woman standing at the top of the stairs that led to that basement entrance (shown above). She said, “Are you looking for the Local History and Genealogy library?” I said yes, and she said it was through the basement door. She said she’d seen me wandering around, from her place at the reference desk…

Now, the only reason I am telling you the details of this story that makes me look like a dolt…is to highlight the dedication to public service of that librarian (whose name turned out to be Cindy). It’s one thing to help someone who’s already standing at your reference desk. But this woman went far out of her way — even out of the building — and into the rain — to flag me down and help me find my way. Now that, my friends, is excellent public service.

Once we were inside, she said she had seen me walking around in the alley and that I’d tried to get into the other building across the way. She explained that the Local History department used to be in that other building, which they had built new a few years ago for that exact purpose and that the Carnegie building had been a regular branch library. But then with budget cuts, they couldn’t keep both buildings as libraries, so they moved Local History back to the Carnegie building and rented out the other one to one of the local government offices. They figured the newer building would be easier to rent out…plus the Carnegie Library already looked like, well, a library.

Then she asked me what I was looking for, and I said, “Well, nothing in particular.” Then I explained about being a local history librarian from Dayton and how I was curious what their Local History department was like. So she gave me a full tour.

The Local History and Genealogy division has the majority of that Carnegie building all to themselves, with a small circulating collection and a computer lab on one half of the lower level. But the other half of the basement and the entire first floor were dedicated exclusively to LH&G.

The place looked great. It had been renovated a few years ago:

There were lots of interesting little details of which I made note:

• In addition to public computers specifically for LH&G use, they also have two flatbed scanners for patron use. This is something that the Dayton library has not embarked upon, although it has been discussed.
• They had a nice little bookshelf where they display new items. There is a New Items section at the Dayton library, but we do not have one specifically for new local history items.
• They have work study students from the university scanning items for their digitization projects. (They have scanned many kinds of records, including deeds and wills.) However, while the digitization itself is awesome, I was more intrigued by the idea that they are able to get work study students to do this work: meaning, the students are paid by federal work study, so it is low-or-no cost to the library, yet it gives them a staffing resource to work on these projects. I later asked the department manager about it, wondering aloud whether we could benefit from a similar program. Her response: “You never know unless you ask.” Too true.

Perhaps eve more wonderful than that — yes, I have deemed something even more wonderful than free-or-low-cost digitization labor! — was the library’s collection of original county records:

Delaware County, Indiana, Marriage License Books

As I understand the story, Delaware County (in which Muncie is located) is now on its third courthouse. When the second courthouse was slated for demolition in the ’60s or ’70s, apparently many of the original record docket books were in danger of destruction as well (for reasons not fully explained to me). Apparently, a Ball State University history professor caught wind of this and mobilized an effort to save the records, which were then given to the library for safekeeping. And so, there they remain, in all their glory!

I’m so glad to hear (and share) this wonderful story of how history was saved and is being preserved. The librarian mentioned that unfortunately, the Carnegie Library is not as environmentally well-controlled as the new building they had to give up (the one across the alley). But, I’ve got to say, any record that exists is better than one that was completely destroyed 40 years ago!

Genealogy and history crossovers

Someone recently asked me how I became interested in public history and archives as a career. It didn’t take me long to come up with an answer. (After all, some version or other of that very anecdote had served as the introduction to many history scholarship essays, as well as one or two grad school admissions statements!)

It was genealogy, actually. I think I was always rather interested in history, which was probably why, when I was about 13 or 14, my grandmother thought of me when she asked if I would be interested continuing keeping track of the family tree that her father had written out on a roll of (unused) meat-packing paper many years earlier. She herself wasn’t interested in doing the research but thought it was important enough to find someone else who was interested. And that person turned out to be me.

The interest in history and the interest in genealogy reinforced one another, I think. How can you research a life without knowing something about the history of the time and place that person lived in? I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been sitting in a history class and thought to myself, Oh, that explains [insert something I found in the genealogy].

Allow me to share some examples of my history/genealogy crossovers:

• One of my great-great-grandfathers had the middle name “Buell.” (He was born in Ohio in 1862. There were two Union generals named Buell; Don Carlos Buell was in charge of the Army of the Ohio.)
• The story of my grandpa’s immigration to America from Italy in 1934 would make a good movie. Okay, maybe I’m biased, but there are definitely some points of historical (and suspenseful) interest: he almost missed the boat (literally) because he had to do his time in the Italian army and then get to America before his visa expired on his 21st birthday — he made it with less than a month to spare. (I certainly appreciated the seriousness of all that a lot better after I learned about the Immigration Act of 1924 and the quota system.)
• At first I thought it was weird that neither my dad nor my aunts knew Italian, even though both their parents spoke it fluently. Dad said his parents didn’t want them to learn it. Then I realized it probably wasn’t cool to be Italian-American during WWII.
• I don’t think I have any ancestors who fought in the Civil War, but my husband does. Actually, the relative that comes to mind wasn’t even in the army. He was a Kentuckian accused of being a rebel sympathizer and hauled off to Camp Chase in Columbus, where he – and one of his sons, actually – died.

And those are just a few… I could come up with many more. Wars in general make a good example of how history interrelates with genealogy. But any far-reaching historical event or era is a good candidate for such examples, really: like I said, immigration laws; economic upheavals like the Great Depression; epidemics such as the Spanish Flu in 1918; etc., etc. You get the idea.

I don’t really see how you can research genealogy without understanding history. I think that probably makes sense to most people who would endeavor to research genealogy.

But what about people who research history? Do you need to understand genealogy in order to research history? I won’t go so far as to make the unqualified statement that “yes, you do.” But, I think an argument could be made that in some cases it could be very helpful.

I have heard that many “serious historians” don’t take genealogists seriously or consider their research valid or valuable. And okay, yes, for many, genealogy is a “hobby,” a matter of personal interest. But I think genealogy can be a useful strategy and tool for understanding certain aspects of the “bigger” history.

What is history, really, but a story of actions taken by people over time? And who are people? Fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers, cousins, husbands, wives, daughters, and sons. Every person who ever lived and who may have in any way impacted history…had a family that shaped their life. (Or maybe they didn’t have a family — an orphan, perhaps — and that shaped their life, too.)

I think many of the Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How questions of a person’s life can be traced back in some way to their family:

• Who is this person? Who were their parents? Were they rich or poor? Were they famous? What was their childhood like? How did that shape their character? When and where were they born, grew up? Where did the family live, and why? How did all of these things shape that person and affect who they grew up to be?

Perhaps I’m drastically blurring the line between “history” and “biography” here. But honestly, history is made up of people, so I don’t see any important distinction there, really. If there were no people to cause the action in “history,” then the history books would be filled with what? … Well, nothing, because there’d be nobody to write them, but assuming they magically wrote themselves, I guess we’d have biology, zoology, geology, geography, meteorology, and astronomy, among other realms of science that do not need human interaction to exist. … But yes, history is made by people, and all of those people have background story that factors into the sum of their character and why they do what they do. And if family doesn’t contribute to making a person what they are, then I don’t know what does.

Just my two cents.

I recently wrote about the usefulness of genealogical research in understanding the contents of the manuscript collections I’ve been processing recently. I don’t think I could fully appreciate what I’m reading about when I read the letters in those collections without having some concept of who is being discussed in the letters.

For instance, a mother writing to one child about another isn’t always going to say, “my son [name]…” or “your brother [name]…” She wouldn’t have needed to, because the other family member would have known about whom she was referring. When I read a letter from Sarah Forrer to Mary Forrer in 1864 that says, “We heard from Howard,” I know she is referring to Mary’s brother Howard who is serving in the Civil War. A combination of genealogical research and historical research gave me the bits and pieces I needed to actually put the letter into some context. Or, when she says, “We saw Lib and Jere yesterday,” I can tell – thanks to genealogy research and context - that she is referring to another daughter Elizabeth and son-in-law Jeremiah.

Come on, did you really think I’d get through an entire post without a specific example related to the manuscript collection I’m currently processing? Tsk, tsk.

Speaking of the Forrer-Peirce-Wood Collection, I’ve got another interesting story brewing — well, two, actually — that I will be sharing with you all very soon. It’s A Tale of Two Howards : two cousins, both named Howard (probably because both their mothers were maiden-named Howard) who served in the Civil War. I’m sorry I didn’t write last week; I was researching the two Howards, but it seemed like every time I was about to write something, I thought of another “but why?” and delved deeper in another direction with it. It just didn’t feel done enough to share yet…

Random thought : You know you’re in the right profession, when the more you learn, the more you want to learn.

Coming soon : A Tale of Two Howards.

Post-mortem photography

This might seem an abrupt change in direction, from last week’s silly and frivolous post about hotties in old photos, changing over to this week’s post to, well, dead people in old photos. But nevertheless, here we go.

(Disclaimer: I will be sharing a few examples of post-mortem photography from my own photograph collections near the end of this post. They’re not graphic at all, but if you prefer not to see any actual photos of dead people, you might want to bail before you get to the end. Let the record show that I warned you.)

Back in May when I was writing my “Hair in a Book” post (5/24/2011) about the several locks of hair I found in an old Bible, I kept coming across the term “memento mori” – which, loosely translated from Latin, means “reminder of death.” That was one of the primary reasons people kept locks of hair – as a memento of a departed loved one. That sort of memento was particularly common in the Victorian era, a time when sentimentality and high mortality converged.

Another type of memento mori was post-mortem photography; that is, photographs of deceased individuals. Now, I actually had seen some examples of post-mortem photography before (we’ll get to that in a minute), but I did not realize it was a relatively common practice (or at least, that’s what I understand to be the case based on what I’ve now read about it).

In the Victorian era, mortality rates were higher and photography was…well, it was within the reach of many but was mainly conducted by professionals. People might hire a photographer to take a picture of a deceased person who, especially if it was a child, may never have been photographed while living, so this post-mortem photo was literally their last chance for a photo of that person. We might think this seems strange today, but death was much more a part of everyday life back then. Eventually this type of photography became much less common in America by the early 20th century because the subject of death has become uncomfortable to discuss, let alone photograph.

I won’t attempt to cover all the details of the history of this custom, but if you want to know more, you may find the following sources interesting:

• “Post-mortem photography,” on Wikipedia.
• Elizabeth Kelley Kerstens, “Secure the Shadow…Ere the Substance Fades,” Ancestry Magazine 23:5 (Sept./Oct. 2005), online.
• Various works by Stanley B. Burns, including Sleeping Beauty (3 vols); here’s his web site and his blog.

According to Stanley Burns (Sleeping Beauty, 2nd ed., 1990), post-mortem photography in America in the 1930s-1940s was “mainly being done by immigrant, ethnic, and certain lower-class groups”. Furthermore, he calls the era of 1935-present “the age of amateurs” and states that “almost any aspect of funerary process, from casket to graveside, is seen.”

That pretty much sums up what I found in my grandfather’s photograph collection.

(If you don’t want to see the pictures I mentioned before, now might be a good time for you to leave.)

My grandfather was born in Italy in 1913. He immigrated to the United States in 1934. His parents had immigrated shortly before he did, and the family settled in Portsmouth, Ohio. His mother died in 1941 and his father in 1952.

Grandpa had several photographs each from both his parents’ wakes and funerals. I remember how odd I thought this was, when I saw them for the first time several years ago – when Grandpa was still alive. I had never seen these types of pictures before.

Great-grandmother's funeral, in the parlor, 1941

Great-grandmother's funeral, at the cemetery, 1941

One of the photographs from my great-grandfather’s wake even had my grandfather in it — standing next to his father’s open casket.

Grandpa and great-grandfather, funeral, in the parlor, 1952

Great-grandfather's funeral, in the parlor, 1952

Great-grandfather's funeral, at the cemetery, 1952

I wondered whether this practice had anything to do with Italian customs, since I had never seen anything like it before. Perhaps this is common in Italy, I wondered. In the case of these particular pictures, it can’t be because they didn’t have other pictures of the individual — because I have seen several other pictures of both these people, while they were alive. So I guess I just don’t know. It’s too bad I didn’t think to ask Grandpa, “What was your reason for taking these pictures?” while he was still alive. But alas, I didn’t…and in 2008, he died, also.

I wasn’t sure what the reason was for his post-mortem pictures of his parents, but I thought maybe he’d be pleased if he knew that somebody thought to take a post-mortem picture of him, too. But, like all the articles have said — and as we just sort of know — people can be weird about death, and you don’t often see post-mortem photographs anymore. So at my grandfather’s wake, I asked my father if he would mind if I took a picture — I didn’t want to weird anybody out — and with his permission, I snapped a few. Here’s one of them.

Grandpa, at the funeral parlor, 2008

I like to think Grandpa would be pleased. After all, he’s looking pretty sharp in his Knights of Columbus uniform. I have another photo in which you can see two of the Knights standing guard on either side of him. In still another, my cousin’s little boy is having a sit on the prayer kneeler…which everybody thought was pretty cute at the time. I was glad the photographing went over well with the family. I certainly didn’t want to upset anybody…but at the same time, it was one of those “last chance for a photo” moments. (Again, we have tons of pictures of Grandpa while he was living. But I just thought…in case I ever do find out there was some real significance to the photos he felt the need to take of his own parents and that maybe he would have liked one of himself, it’s not like I can go back in time and take the pictures later…)

In parting on this subject, I will leave you with the only other post-mortem photograph I have ever found (i.e., besides the ones of my great-grandparents). This one is of a tiny baby in a wooden casket — probably an example of one of those cases where no other photo of this person ever existed prior to death.

baby girl in casket

The photo is not dated, but I have guessed it was probably from the 1920s or 1930s. The writing on the back is in Italian, but I can’t quite make it out. I think some of the words must be misspelled, because I am usually pretty good with an Italian dictionary or at least Google Translator. And I’m not getting much from the words on the back of this picture, besides “povera mia” or “my poor girl”. If anybody would like to take a stab at translating it for me, let me know, and I’ll send you the image.

So…I’m curious. Has anyone else found any of these in their collections? Apparently early ones can be difficult to recognize as post-mortem photos because the subjects were often posed in lifelike positions. I’d be interesting in hearing what others have found in their collections, because as I said, until I found these in my Grandpa’s photos, I had never even heard of such a thing, let alone seen one.

** EDIT ** Here is a scan of the back side of that photograph of the deceased infant. Thanks to Theresa for offering to try and translate it for me! (I have tried myself, but I think either the handwriting or the spelling — or both — is what’s defeating me!)

Back of the Baby Girl in Casket photo

Biographical sketches and the WeRelate genealogy wiki

First, a little background info:

An archival manuscript finding aid is a document written by archivists to help users (including the archivists themselves!) understand the contents and significance of a manuscript collection, as well as to identify the locations (box, folder, etc.) of the collection’s contents.

A well-done finding aid should generally have four main parts: Introduction (general info), Biographical/Historical Sketch (history of the person/people/organization that created the records), Scope and Content (slightly more specific general info), and Container Listing (the locations). (Here’s an example of one of my finding aids: for the Lowe Collection.)

In writing the Biographical Sketch part of the finding aid for a personal/family collection, I have found that it is very helpful to gather history and genealogy on the family before I do much work with the records. It’s a give-and-take. You have to look at the records enough in the first place to have some idea of which part of the family you need to research. Then, you research them (yay genealogy! no seriously.), so that you have a better idea of what you’re looking at when you dive further into the collection. And then you inevitably find stuff about more family members you didn’t know existed (e.g, Wait, who’s ‘Aunt Phebe’?) and move back over to the genealogy again.

Kathleen Roe explains a little more eloquently in Arranging & Describing Archives & Manuscripts (Chicago: SAA, 2005):

Gathering information about the person, organization, or group that created, accumulated, assembled, or used a group of records is essential to establishing context. … The archivist needs to have a sense of this before arranging and describing records, or may entirely misinterpret or misrepresent both the records themselves and the information in them. (p. 57)

To keep track of the research I have done for the Biographical Sketch, I have usually managed to make due simply with a big stack of photocopies from county histories, printouts from Ancestry (which you can use free at the library!) and other sites, and a few paper family group sheets.

But that was before the Forrer-Peirce-Wood Collection. (Didn’t I warn you that by the time I finish processing it, even you, dear readers, will be sick of hearing about it?)

Oh, FPW Collection! How you overwhelm me so…with your 34 boxes and your 5+ generations worth of family papers. And let’s not forget your incredibly frustrating habit of naming people after other people, so that there are two Mary Forrer Peirce’s and three Elizabeth Forrer Peirce’s (and one Elizabeth Forrer Parrott – which adds to the confusion when they are signing with things like Bess, Bessie, and Beth; or simply “EFP”).

The collection contains the papers and letters of so many different family members that I literally have a stack of family group sheets about 1/2″ tall and it was becoming quite cumbersome flipping through them all to find the information I was looking for, to figure out “who’s who” in the collection.

I have some genealogy software on my personal computer that I like really well — RootsMagic — and it has a free version that you can download (with a few less options). However, since it requires Admin privileges to install even the free trial version, I was not able to install it at work. (Fair play to you, IT Department.) I suppose it’s just as well, because there are three different computers that I use fairly regularly, so I would need to install it on all of them, and I decided it just wasn’t really worth the hassle to ask IT to let me do it.

So fast-forward to a few days ago. (Yes, all of the previous was still just “background info”.)  I was discussing this problem with a co-worker who happens to be the Genealogy Librarian. I said I wished I had a solution for coherently keeping track of all this genealogy info when I’m researching, arranging, and describing a collection: something on the computer that I could search and get to from anywhere.

She suggested the WeRelate.org genealogy wiki. She recommended it over some of the other sites, because WeRelate does not take your information and then try to sell it to other people. It is a free site maintained by the Allen County Public Library (well-known for it’s huge family history center at Fort Wayne, Indiana). And since it’s a wiki, it is collaborative — which can be good and bad; it means that you can possibly incorporate and edit other people’s “people” into your tree but on the flip side, other users can edit your stuff also.

I decided to give it a try. I figured, it’s free, what’s the worst that could happen? And as it turns out, it’s kind of awesome.

A few notes:

• You can add information directly to the site or upload a gedcom. I started adding info directly to the site, so the method for that took a little getting used to. They have some good tutorials though, if you need them.
• Since I’m adding directly to the site, I wondered if I’d be able to download a gedcom file later, to save elsewhere. You can! Huzzah!
• It makes you check before you add a new person, to make sure that person isn’t already on the wiki somewhere. Most of my people were new, but I did find a few people already in the wiki so I linked them up!
• At one point, I actually had the experience of somebody working on a page at the same time as me. I clicked off it for a few minutes, and then when I came back, I saw some new info. It threw me off for a minute — Did I do that? — and then I realized what was going on. I was still surprised, though, since so many of the people I was adding weren’t even in the wiki, and then all the sudden not only do I have the same person that someone else is interested in, but they are actually work on that same person at the same time as me. Kind of cool. It was like two people grabbing for the same book at the library – you realize you are interested in the same thing.
• I really like the source citations function. Most of the general sources I was using (e.g. county histories, common Ancestry databases) had already been added, so I just linked to them. But I added some sources myself, too.
• They don’t want you to add information for any living people, and if you try to enter someone with a birthday less than 110 years ago, the site will not let you save it. Fair enough, I can understand the reasoning for that, privacy issues and probably not wanting to deal with irate individuals demanding their information be removed. Lucky for me, most of the collections I will be working with belonged to long-dead individuals, so I shouldn’t have any trouble using this site to keep track of info for my archival finding aids.
• You can divide your stuff up into different “trees” but really it’s all just one big tree, because you can link to people who are in other trees. I think the “trees” really probably function more like “tags” or categories, because people can be included in multiple trees (just like this blog post can have multiple tags).

All in all, a pretty neat site. If you want to see what I’ve been doing with it, feel free to check out my WeRelate user page (user name BellaNox). It lists the different trees I’m working on, which — surprise, surprise — correspond to the different archival collections I’ve arranged and described (and therefore researched the families).

The Forrer-Peirce-Wood Collection is MS-018 at the Dayton Metro Library. Contact the library or this blog owner for more information.

A tangled web

This time, it all started with a “Dear Sir, may I please marry your daughter?” letter from the late 1820s. And before I knew it, I had gone from researching Quaker marriage rules to learning about the Hicksite Separation – all in the name of history clues.

How did that happen? Because it’s all inter-related, my friends. History and people’s lives, I mean. Sure, on some level, we all “know” that. After all, isn’t history just one big long story of what people did? That’s putting it simplistically, of course, but at it’s core, that’s what history is: a history.

When we think of history, a lot of times, maybe we think of the “history books”. And by “history books,” many of us think of those big, hardback textbooks from our K-12 days that really only scratched the surface, so maybe it was hard to see where the connections lay.

But when I can match the stories and lives of ordinary people, maybe even faces or handwritten notes, with a snippet of history, I think that’s pretty exciting.

I can never quite decide whether genealogy got me interested in history or if it was the other way around. But somehow or other, I have long been interested in both.

Here are just a few examples off the top of my head — and the boughs of my family tree — where the stories of ordinary people and the history of not just America, but the world, have meshed together to create meaning for me:

• My 5G-grandfather Elias Coriell received a land grant in Ohio for his service in the War of 1812. If there had been no war, or he hadn’t served, I wonder if they would have ever left New Jersey?
• My 2G-grandfather Jacob Coriell’s middle name was Buell. I always thought that was an odd name, but it took me until a college course on the Civil War to realize that my ancestor, born in Sept. 1862, was more than likely named in honor of Don Carlos Buell, a Union general from Ohio.
• I read books on immigration by Roger Daniels (Coming to America) and Donna R. Gabaccia (Italy’s Many Diasporas) a few years back and finally got a better understanding of the experiences of my Italian ancestors; particularly, an answer to “why the heck do the men show up on the ships manifests so many times?”
• Another one of Daniels’ books (Guarding the Golden Door) was particularly useful in learning more about the immigration laws and quota system that almost prevented my Grandpa Pasquinelli immigrating at all. He squeaked by just days before his 21st birthday and the expiration of his visa; another week and it would have been “back to the end of the line”.  Why’d he wait until the last minute? Good ol’ Il Duce (Ben Mussolini) demanded a stint in the army before any man over 18 could emigrate. Fascisti!

A lot of your common, oft-repeated ”history-and-ancestor-cross-paths” stories probably result from some war, because let’s face it, wars are awful and can change lives in the blink of an eye. You’ve got enlistments, either voluntary or drafted; potential for death in a variety of forms (obviously); raids, bombings; home front activities; killed/missing/just-plain-constantly-worried-about husbands/fathers/brothers/lovers (or the female version of those, in more recent years); quickie weddings, good-bye babies, possibly love-children in that the men don’t even know about, in foreign lands; all sorts of dramatic things. No wonder there are so many war movies!

I don’t have a lot of “war stories”. My most recent ancestor (or near relative of any kind really) to serve in a war was my great-grandpa Oscar Emnett. He was drafted for World War I. As the eldest of 9 in a family that had just lost its mother, they (whoever “they” were) offered to get him out of it, but true to the attitude of that Age, he said, “No, I’ll do my duty.” From the sound of his diary, “doing his duty” seemed to amount to a lot of desk work, playing cards, and noting the weather in France, but nevertheless, by god, he was there!

My grandpa Ed Coriell tried to enlist in the military – he graduated high school in 1945, 1 year after the G.I. Bill was enacted — so he could go to college for free when he was finished. But since he’s almost completely blind in one eye, they wouldn’t take him; so he kept on as a butcher instead and made a living for his family. My grandpa couldn’t use the G.I. Bill, but think how many other lives it has changed in the past 67 years…

Some of those history connections are probably more important than others. Would anything have been different if my ancestor’s middle name hadn’t been Buell? Probably not.

But what if Oscar had died in France? Or if a U-boat sunk his transport ship on the way over? I don’t think he really saw combat, but what about a disease? For that matter, he could have taken “them” up on the offer to stay home, gotten Spanish Flu in the 1918 epidemic.

Or what if my Grandpa P. had missed his boat? Or if visas had expired at age 20? Or if the quota system had been even more restrictive to Italians than it was? Or if Mussolini had made the mandatory army service longer?

I could go on and on, as I’m sure you’ve probably noticed.

But the point is this: It’s all really just one gigantic story. Thomas Foster said essentially this in regards to literature, but if it applies to fiction-within-the-context-of-history, then it certainly applies to straight-up history, too. It’s all just one, big, massive, tangled web. We’re all caught up in it, every single one of us. And what happens in history affects us, whether we like it or not. But what we don’t always realize is that we — the “ordinary everyday people” — help make up the pieces of that history, sometimes in big ways, sometimes small.

Sometimes we’re just going along, living our lives, and we have no idea what impact our actions could have down the road, whether as an example of “such-and-such phenomenon” in history, or in changing the course of…something…in history, or a million other ways I can’t even begin to imagine.

And before you say, “Oh, but I’m nobody special, I’m not going to ‘change the world’ or whatever,” fine, let’s pretend that’s true. But you’re connected to this person, and they’re connected to the next person and the next person, etc., etc. And just by existing, you are having an impact on the world, and thereby, on history. There’s just no getting around it.

See what I mean? A tangled web.

Isn’t it fun?

Cemetery musings

I try to write at least one entry per week in this blog, and by that I mean I try not to let more than 7 days pass between entries. This week I have failed. I blame the holiday weekend; had I been at work those 3 days, I probably would have “stumbled” onto something I felt like blogging about. I’m always finding, or learning, something interesting. Such is the life of an archivist.

So, on Tuesday, I was thinking, What should I write about this week? Then, I began reviewing photos from the holiday weekend…and realized I had plenty of geeky history/library/archives fodder I could share – with photos! This entry is just going to be about snippets, but if something strikes your fancy and you would like to know more, drop me a line and ask for an elaboration. [Now there's a great Latin word...]

On Saturday, my husband Matt and I took a drive to Columbus. First, we visited the Camp Chase Confederate Cemetery. (I bet you didn’t know there was a confederate cemetery in Ohio, did you? Well, there is, and now you know!)

We hunted around a bit for a Kentucky ancestor of Matt’s who is supposedly buried there, along with his son, but couldn’t find either of them. Either they are not really there (making the old “story” wrong), or they were not on whatever list was used when these pretty (new) white headstones were ordered. According to the story, the father was accused of being a “rebel sympathizer” (who knows if he was or not) and was hauled off to the prison camp; the son was a confederate soldier. It was still a nice visit, even if we didn’t find them. It was nice to see the stones all decorated with American flags for Memorial Day. Regardless of which side of the Mason-Dixon line you hail from, it’s good to remember we were (and are) all “Americans”.

I visited another cemetery on Sunday, but this one was a little closer to home. I was on my way somewhere when I passed the Polk Grove Cemetery at the corner of U.S. 40 (National Road) and Frederick Pike in Vandalia. I have passed it before but never stopped to check it out. So, on Sunday, I did. I took several pictures, including some that I “stitched” together using photo editing software, to make a panorama:

The cemetery was established in 1825, according to the sign, so there were plenty of neat old stones in there.

You know, I had more “snippets” I was going to share, but since these two are both about cemeteries, I think I will stick with that subject.

It might seem strange that “I brake for cemeteries.” I always forget that’s not a particularly normal thing to do, but I’ve been doing it for so long, it seems normal to me. I’m trying to think back to how I got this way. It must be from genealogy.

My grandmother got me started on genealogy when I was 13 or 14 years old. Gravestone inscriptions are one of the many sources for genealogical “clues”. I went to many cemeteries, both looking for info, and also just to “see” my ancestors. There are probably few cemeteries in Scioto County, Ohio, that I haven’t visited at least once. Sometimes, if I passed a cemetery I had not been to before, I would stop just to see if there were any names I recognized.

I suppose those two reasons could explain the trips to two cemeteries this weekend: hunting for a relative (in Camp Chase cemetery) and curiosity of whether there were any names I recognized (in Polk Grove cemetery). Sure, I didn’t expect to find any relatives in the Vandalia cemetery, since none of my ancestors are from there. But hello! I work in a local history reference in an area that includes Vandalia – I’ve seen lots of those names before.

And if you didn’t already find me morbid enough — hmm, this is not made better by the fact that my previous entry is all about keeping dead people’s hair, is it? — I have one other reason that I like stopping by cemeteries: it’s comforting. That may no make much sense. Most of the time when people are in a cemetery, “comfort” is probably about the last thing they are feeling: they are probably burying a relative or friend or visiting that person’s grave because they miss them or want to pay respect to them. There’s not much “comfort” that comes with those things.

But I don’t really think of a cemetery as a big field planted with dead people. And okay, most of my experiences with cemeteries has been tinged with “adventure” or “treasure-hunting” or “discovery” rather than grief or loss. I’ve gone into cemeteries so many times, already knowing why, when, and how some of those people “got there” and some of the things they endured in the years (whether many or few) leading up to that final resting point:  cancer, tuberculosis, operations gone wrong, accidents, death of a child, abandonment, less-than-stellar parents, financial hardships, crappy occupations (or downright unemployment), long emigration voyages on rough waters, discrimination, frontier life, the Great Depression, war, floods, losing everything… I could go on and on, but you get the picture.

I can just sit down in the grass and stare out at those stones and “know” what hardships these people must have faced. Sometimes, I can “match” names and their relevant hardships together (like family members); but most times, 99% of the people I don’t even know, let alone what all they went through…but you could imagine. And it makes me feel like, no matter what is going on in my life, there’s probably somebody “out there” – in that field – who went through it before me (and probably suffered much, much worse). It gives me a weird sense of comfort. Plus, cemeteries are usually such calm, quiet places. It’s a good place to just sit and reflect. I like that about them, too.

Hmm, I was trying to dial down the “morbid” by explaining why I like to hang out in cemeteries, but I’m not sure I really accomplished my goal by saying more. Maybe you’d have to be a genealogist/family history buff to understand. Is anybody with me?

Fun with the U.S. Census

The Federal Census of the United States has been taken every 10 years since 1790 to collect population statistics, with the primary purpose of determining how many seats a state has in the U.S. House of Representatives. (For example, the population of Ohio shrunk between 2000 and 2010, so Ohio will be losing 2 Congressional seats when it comes time to elect a new U.S. Congress.)

But in addition to affecting legislative representation, there are a number of reasons why the census is useful and interesting from a historical point of view. The demograhpic information, such as race and income, that is collected can tell us lots of nifty things.

For instance, check out this neat map mashup of 2010 census data posted by the New York Times. You can view color-coded maps showing race and ethnicity, income, housing, and education. You can view a nationwide map or zoom way in to show your own neighborhood. The official 2010 census web site has some cool data maps as well, such as one showing populations changes from state to state from 1910 to 2010.

If you are looking for more detailed information about a particular city, you might try the FactFinder on the U.S. Census Bureau web site. At the FactFinder web site, you could find facts for a particular city such as: population, median age, median household income, per capita income, racial percentages, education levels, and many other stats. Another great thing about the FactFinder is that many small towns are included, not just cities or ”metro areas.” Don’t believe me? Here’s the FactFinder for Lucasville, Ohio, a town of about 1,500 people. I just love the FactFinder for getting a general demographic sense of a place that I know nothing about.

The people who probably get the most “general public” use out of U.S. Census data, however, are probably genealogists (myself included). Finding a relative on the census means connecting that person to a specific location at a specific time. Census years up to 1840 only record the head of household and then count of the people in the house. However, in the year 1850 and afterwards, there is a lot more useful information, such as family members’ names and ages (at the very least). Certain years asked questions like place of birth, relationship to the head of household (wife, son, mother-in-law, servant, etc.), occupation, birth date (not just age), number of children born to the mother, number of years married, year of immigration, etc. If you are curious exactly what questions were asked in what years, check out Ancestry.com’s downloadable blank census forms for years 1790-1930. They didn’t ask quite as many questions on the 2010 census, but at least names and ages were still collected.

Unfortunately (for us genies) but understandably (to due very legitimate privacy concerns), the individually identifiable information data is not released until it is 72 years old.  But, that means the 1940 census names will be coming out in 2012! Hooray! Hmm…I just realized that if I’m alive when the 2010 individual census info is released (if it even is released, who knows what privacy laws will be like then!), I will be 100 years old. Oh my!

I recently read a good article from CNN about using the census for family history research. There are many genealogy web sites that are sure to have tips, and of course there’s always your local genealogical society or library local history/genealogy department. Odds are, the library can help you search the census using microfilm or an Internet database, such as the free FamilySearch or the subscription site Ancestry (which the library probably has a subscription to, by the way).

But here’s a quick list of things to keep in mind when using the census for genealogy:

• ** The info is only as good as the information giver, the information recorder, and the combination thereof. **
• Don’t assume the names are spelled right. The census taker may not have even asked how the name was spelled.
• Explore the possibility that the name was spelled wrong. If you don’t find your grandfather’s last name spelled under the correct entry of “Kiser”, try “Kaiser” or “Kizer” or “Kayser.” Also, if you have a name that is often misspelled, you migth want to check into a magical little thing called the SOUNDEX.
• Don’t assume the ages are correct. (If someone came to the door and asked your dad how old all of his kids were, do you think he’d get them all exactly right?)
• Don’t assume you “know” where they were. One side of my family has lived in Scioto County, Ohio for almost 200 years…and yet one year I found them in some random distant county of Kentucky; the next census they were back again. I wouldn’t have believed it was them except the guy had several children and the names and ages all matched up…

The bottom line is: Don’t assume…anything, really. You never know what you’re going to find. That’s one of the things that makes the census fun and interesting…..and sometimes incredibly frustrating.

Anybody who thinks history isn’t interesting hasn’t done real history. And the U.S. Census is one big giant chunk of real history. So check it out.