Wishful Wednesday - 52 Ancestors Week 3 - Jeffrey Girls

When I saw Amy Johnson Crow’s suggestion about 52 Ancestors, I immediately responded that I thought it was a fabulous idea. Taking the time to focus on one ancestor a week and writing a blog post about that ancestor seemed like an easy enough task. Of course, here we are in Week 3, and I’ve yet to get a post done. I thought I’d quickly write a post about my Granny Frances and her two sisters, Bessie and Adelaide. You know, for Week Three. Because there were three of them.

Except, my math's not so hot and there was a fourth. Actually, I knew this; Isabel, the oldest daughter of George and Fanny Jeffrey was born on 31 May 1886, according to State of Michigan records. The written entry shows she was born to “George Jeffrey” a “carriage maker” and “Fannie”; George is from “Canada” and Fannie is from “Michigan”. This all jibes with other evidence I have and explains the lovely photos of ‘Isabel’ that I found among my Granny’s photos:

In order to write a quality post (you know I strive to do that, right), I decided to take a fast look at my ‘Documents’ folder in my digital library under the surname ‘Jeffrey’. I thought I might be able to add a document or two to my other sources for the Jeffrey girls in Family Tree Maker. As my eyes scanned down the list of unprocessed material, they stopped at an entry that says this:

                                  Jeffrey Edna B3 p237

Um, who’s Edna? The other entries, GIF file images from the State of Michigan, County of Kalamazoo Birth Records, read like this:

Jeffrey Isabel B3 p146
Jeffrey Bessie B3 p284
Jeffrey Frances Isabel B4 p129
Jeffrey Adelaide B5 p142

I remember when I pulled these images back in December, 2011. What I didn’t remember is pulling FIVE records.  Here’s where it gets really hinky; check out the dates of birth (again, according to what’s written in the log books):

Isabel - 31 May 1886
Edna - 21 December 1888
Bessie - 31 May 1889
Baby** - 22 Apr 1893 **A notation was added “7-1-58 Frances Isabel”
Adelaide B - 10 May 1901

I did verify that the ‘Edna’ entry was a daughter of George and Fannie, from Canada and Michigan. George’s occupation is listed as ‘Mail Carrier’ and I know that my George was indeed a Mail Carrier in Kalamazoo for 30 years, as confirmed with the US Postal Service. So, what’s wrong with this picture?

As I mentioned, before, I like to think I’m smart. The time period between Edna’s birth 21 December 1888 and Bessie’s birth 31 May 1889 is only 5 months. While babies are viable at that time frame, it seems highly unlikely in the late 1800s. It also seems a bit strange that Bessie and Isabel share the exact same date of birth, although again it’s not impossible. What’s really bizarre is that my cousin Kathy, the daughter of my mom’s sister Jacqueline, 'corrected' my information when she saw it online, telling me that the family celebrated Bessis’s birthday around Christmas and that her birthday was December 21^st. Uh, oh.

It’s far more likely that Bessie was born in December 1889, and any family historian worth their salt knows that hand written records, even official ones, can be incorrect. In Kalamazoo County, at that time, it was still commonplace to provide information about the birth of a child well after the actual date. Is it possible that Bessie was born on 31 December instead of May as was written in the log? The strange thought that perhaps to ‘honor’ her departed sister they decided to say that she was born on the same day, but a year later, also came to mind but seems unlikely. Maybe George or Fanny misspoke when giving the information to the County when asked the child’s date of birth.

I've been unable to locate a death record, or any other record for that matter, for Edna Jeffrey. I can only presume that she died very close to, or on, her birth date and that’s why she was never mentioned by my Granny. Of course, now I wish I’d asked my Mom about her a few years ago when her mind was working a lot better, although I doubt that she’d have known anything about Edna. She didn't know about Isabel until we were going through old photos after my mom’s sister passed away in 2006.

Wishful thinking: there’s no such thing as an ‘easy’ post. *sigh*

Rather than bail entirely, I'm hanging with my original idea and posting about the three (surviving) Jeffrey girls:

Bessie Jeffrey was my grand aunt. She was an unusual woman; she never married, but worked for the US government her entire life. According to my Mom, her Aunt Bessie smoked like a chimney and rarely ate, which is why she was always frighteningly thin. She lived in Chicago; at one point she lived in a building that overlooked what used to be a Chicago architectural icon: the Edgewater Beach Hotel. I know she traveled; I found photos of her in Florida, Bermuda, and Mexico. I know little else about her. She died, at her sister Frances’ in Villa Park, Illinois on 24 July 1965 at the age of 76.

Frances Isabel was my Granny. That’s how I knew her and always referred to her as did the rest of my contemporaries. She was a strong woman to be certain; my grandfather had ‘a drinking problem’ and as a salesman was either traveling or moving the family. I’ve written about her wedding date: December 7, 1917. Her husband, Victor Wersel had started at the Bryant Paper Company as a salesman where she was a secretary. After they married they waited before starting their family and had two daughters, Virginia in 1922 and Jacqueline 1924. Then in 1933, shortly after Frances celebrated her 40^th birthday, my Mom surprised everyone with her entry into the world. Frances was a sweet, caring person. She would buy Christmas presents throughout the year, wrapping them very carefully and storing them in her room until it was time to celebrate. She made potato coquettes, which to this day are a family tradition. Victor died in 1963, leaving her a widow; she never remarried, living the rest of her life alone. I don’t believe that they’d saved anything, so she worked. As a matter of fact, she was commuting from the western suburbs of Chicago to the downtown Goldblatt’s store when they ‘suggested’ she retire after working there for 20 years; I think they’d found out she was 85 years young. Frances died 24 August 1990 in Elmhurst, Illinois at the age of 97.
                          

Adelaide was my grand aunt. Like Bessie she was a bit eccentric. She was born in 1901, so her sisters were a bit older than her. I think the term ‘precocious’ would have fit Adelaide to a ‘T’.  It's uncertain whether or not Adelaide was officially married to George Thurston, the father of her two children Patricia and George, but her 1930 US Census entry indicates she was divorced and living with her parents. And, five years later, she was married and living with her husband, Adolf Koop. From the family photos I found, it appears that my grandfather Victor (Frances' husband) and Adolf got along really well and were the life of the party. Heh. Sadly, Adelaide died of ovarian cancer on 31 October 1956 in Villa Park, Illinois at the age of 55. 

                             

Oh, there's lots more to tell, which is what is going to keep this challenge so, well, challenging. On to the next ancestor. 

Hmmm, I wonder who it will be...

Motivation Monday - Get Those Old Photo Albums Out

I posted about having unidentified photos that had been pulled from old photo albums on Friday; you can read that post here.

I received lots of comments (thank you so much!) asking about removing the photos from these old albums without damaging them. Why bother to remove them? Because for long term preservation, it’s better to remove them from the album and place them in appropriate archival quality storage (acid-free envelopes, folders and/or boxes).

A word of caution first: take digital images of the pages BEFORE you try to remove them from an album. If the album is flexible enough for a scanner that’s a fine way to get the image, otherwise using a digital camera or smartphone will do the job. I've done both with a number of albums I've processed. And, while it’s great to capture an image that’s of good enough quality to clip each individual picture (later), the purpose in capturing an image of the page as a whole is to preserve the original arrangement on each page as well as the original order of the pages. This, in turn, preserves the context that can be inferred from how the images are arranged if they are not identified; we call that respect des fonds. 

So, how the heck do you get the photographs off the pages?! Patience and a steady hand are important components in this process along with a couple of tools that you can use:

1. If the adhesive is not very good and the edges of the photographs are loose, you can use a micro spatula to attempt to gently pry them up. What’s a *micro spatula*? You can see what it looks like here. In a pinch, I’ve used a palette knife (used for mixing oil paints) that you can get at an art supply store. The key is in using something that has a fairly sharp, thin edge, but not so sharp that it will cut the photo.

2. Dental floss. Yep, here’s a case where an inexpensive household item can work magic. Make certain that the floss does not include flavor (think unnecessary chemicals on your photo), but it can be waxed. Teflon floss works the best, since the Teflon helps to prevent sticking. Begin with a corner; gently work the floss under the photo and then use a back and forth ‘sawing’ motion - G E N T L Y.  Again, this takes a very steady hand and lots of patience, but often it’s an issue of getting past the first line of adhesive and the picture will come off the page. 

If, in examining the album, you find that the vast majority of the photos are securely adhered to the pages, it may be best to leave them as they are. In this case, acid-free tissue paper can be placed in between the pages to help to reduce the eventual degradation of the images from the acid in the pages.

If you have other issues with your albums, let me know and I'll see if I can make suggestions that can help you. Archival supplies are NOT expensive, in general. I am an Archivist, which means I'm on an incredibly tight budget (i.e., I don't make a lot of money), so I totally understand needing to be frugal. Frugality shouldn't prevent you from protecting your family materials for the future!

*Please note: I am not compensated when suggesting products and/or suppliers. I'm going by the experience I've had with the products and suppliers; your experience may be different. Common sense is my rule for 2014.

Friday's Faces From the Past - Keeping Clues in Place

I thought I’d take a moment to quickly discuss the challenges of old photo albums. I’m not talking about those horrible ‘magnetic’ albums with the sticky pages and plastic that holds the photos in place, but those albums with black or dark brown ‘construction paper’ pages. They may be 100 years old, or older, and the photos in them may look fine but the acid in the pages are slowly degrading the images and the paper they are on.

As an Archivist, I’ve de-mounted my fair share of photographs and other items from albums and scrapbooks. It’s a tedious process but one that, in the long run, will preserve the materials longer. The key is in ensuring that the order in which the items were placed in the album is maintained. It is essential that this be done to maintain the context in which the photographs were added by whoever created the album.

Obviously if the images are identified you're well ahead of the game. Simply transferring the information to the back of the photo, using a photo pencil of course, is fine. But if there is no identification it becomes even more critical to keep the images in the order they were in the album. As we all know, it’s rare that someone puts random pictures into an album. While you might not know who are in the images, those 2^nd and 3^rd cousins that are out there may know, or you may realize through clues in the images themselves who is whom. It’s also possible there’s another album somewhere that may have images that are identified which will provide identification for your images.

So before you remove the images from the pages, scan or take a digital image of the entire page. Then as you carefully remove the images from the album use a numbering system to identify their location from the album. As you place the images in acid-free folders or in acid-free photo boxes, carefully note on the back with a photo pencil the location from the album.

I have a 3^rd cousin who removed unidentified images, many tin types, from a number of albums and when she presented them to me to scan, she had no idea who the people in the images are or which images had originally been together. I also found several photos my Mom had in her collection which are unidentified. There’s nothing more frustrating for a genealogist than to have these much older photos and simply have no clue who they are!