Read from the beginning here. **Click on the images below for larger versions**
The next photo is one of my favorites:
Friends 46 & 47
There’s so much to love about this photo — the girl’s dress, the boy’s bowtie. I can only assume this pair is brother and sister. It’s too bad her face is a little blurry. Also too bad that they’re not identified.
Once again, this photo was taken at Folsom’s in Danbury, Conn.
Read from the beginning here. **Click on the images below for larger versions**
Friend No. 44 looks a little surprised to be here:
Friend No. 44
We’ve seen photographer Walter F. Chipman’s work before. He shot Friend No. 29 as well. Unfortunately, there are no identifying marks on this photo besides the imprint on the front.
Photo No. 45 was taken by still another photographer in Danbury, Conn.:
Friend No. 45
This new (to us) photographer was Harvey A. Lesure. I’ve added his address to my Danbury photographer map on Google Maps.
This imprint is especially helpful as it includes the year — 1886. I found Lesure at 207 Main in directories in 1885 and 1886. Interestingly, he’s again listed in 1886 at 247 Main (that address was also used by Mrs. J. H. Folsom, Frank Smith and Wynard’s Studio over the years).
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Carter’s Danbury Directory for 1886-7, Harvey A. Lesure, p 111; Ancestry.com (www.ancestry.com : accessed 27 March 2011).
Danbury, Connecticut Directories, 1885-86, Harvey A. Lesure; Ancestry.com (www.ancestry.com : accessed 27 March 2011).
Well, I’ve done it! I’ve found a living descendant of a subject in the friends album. I haven’t contacted him yet. I’m still figuring out what I want to say.
Friend No. 12 (Ellis B. Wilson)
In the meantime, I’ll share some tidbits from a major clue that led me to the grandson of Ellis B. Wilson (I’m withholding the grandson’s name to maintain his privacy). Over the weekend, I decided to search the Hartford Courant archives to see if I could find Ellis’ obituary (previously, I found his FindaGrave memorial, which provided me with his date of death and the names of his two wives). Other records had confirmed for me that Hartford was the place to search for his obit.
The Courant’s archives delve back into the 1700s. The paper does charge users for anything besides a brief abstract of its older articles, but after failing to find the obituary through other free resources available to me (and resources that I already pay for), I decided it was worth the nominal fee to get the details that his obituary would divulge.
From Ellis’ obit, I learned he was known as “Mr. American Legion Baseball,” having established the American Legion Baseball program in Connecticut. I also learned that he died while on vacation in Treasure Island, Fla.
The obituary named his daughter and her place of residence at the time of his death. This allowed me to find more information on her, which led me to her sons including the one I know still to be living.
I think I’m going to wait until I’ve finished going through the entire album before I contact Ellis’ grandson. I’m still hoping that I’ll find other descendants of other known subjects in the album. This could lead to a dilemma. My original goal was to return the album to descendants of those pictured after I realized that many of the photo subjects belong to the same family. Now, it appears that I may identify descendants of unrelated subjects. I’m loathe to split up the album, at least right now. But if Ellis’ family doesn’t have this picture of him, how I could I not send it to them? Dilemma!
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“Ellis B. Wilson, 77, Dies; Legion Baseball Pioneer,” The Hartford Courant (1923-1984), Jan. 30, 1971, p 4: ProQuest Historical Newspapers Hartford Courant (1764-1985); (http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/courant/advancedsearch.html : accessed 26 March 2011).
For the Friends Album, I created a spreadsheet to keep track of the various images and data I’ve assembled about each. One of my goals was to be able to sort the spreadsheet by location, photographer, etc. Imagine my frustration when I first sorted the spreadsheet and the photos didn’t sort with the rows.
I had initially populated the spreadsheet with images by using the menu command Insert -> Image and then resizing each image to fit the designated cell. I’m not quite sure why this command exists, because it was pointless.
After the sort didn’t work, I did some research on how images really should be included in Google spreadsheets. I found this page, which was very helpful. Instead of using the menu command, using this formula embeds the image in the selected cell:
=image(“URL”)
It was a pain to go back and repopulate the spreadsheet with images the proper way, but at least now I can sort the rows and the photos will move with them!
I stated in a previous post about the Friends Album that I couldn’t find the photographer, E. A. Osborne, in various records. After searching other Danbury, Connecticut photographers, however, I have refined my search techniques and managed to locate him in Danbury city directories in 1893, 1895, 1898 on Ancestry. His name was Edward A. Osborne and his studio address was listed as 197 Main, just like in the imprints on Photos 1 & 2.
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Crofutt’s Danbury City Directory, 1893, 1895, 1898. Ancestry.com (www.ancestry.com : accessed 8 March 2011).
This post is part of 52 Weeks of Personal Genealogy & History (focus this week on natural disasters) and the Geneabloggers Tuesday’s Tip blogging prompt.
Here is the 52 Weeks question: “Week 10: Disasters. Did you experience any natural disasters in your lifetime? Tell us about them. If not, then discuss these events that happened to parents, grandparents or others in your family.”
The closest I’ve come to living through a natural disaster was last year’s Snowmageddon in the D.C. area. If you’re interested in reliving that, please see the story, starting here.
This week’s topic got me thinking about what to do to prevent damage to your family history records and artifacts in the case of a natural disaster.
I concentrated on archives and preservation for my MLS degree. One of the classes I took was fascinating — we studied the various ways different types of materials can deteriorate — my professor actually collects damaged books and other items on purpose and brought them in by the cart-load to each class so we could see how problems develop and the effect different types of damage have on documents, etc.
Of course, we also talked about how to prevent such damage. Keeping valuable documents out of harm’s way is a biggie. Here’s the number-one tip the professor impressed upon us constantly throughout the class:
Flat Roofs Always Leak
And it’s true. They have not developed a fool-proof system for draining the top of buildings with flat roofs. I work in a relatively new building and they’re constantly chasing down the sources of leaks during heavy rainstorms. Once they patch one problem area, the water just travels to the next one. It always finds a way.
So how does this affect you? Consider where you’re storing your precious family photos, documents and heirlooms. Are you in a building with a flat roof? I suppose you could move, but let’s say you don’t have much choice in the matter — how can you protect your valuables from the inevitable?
There are plenty of protective containers for items like photographs, papers and books. Make sure you are storing items in waterproof containers. Are they in the attic? If yes, bad idea. Not only does that put items first in line for water damage in the case of a roof leak, but most attics do not have the temperature and humidity controls of other areas of a building. This also can lead to damage caused by moisture (the same goes for basements).
Let’s say you have scanned everything as an added precaution. Where is your computer? What would happen if it got wet and your hard drive was fried — make sure you are backing up regularly and in multiple ways. I recommend having an online back-up in the cloud, a back-up to an external hard drive and a back-up of items to CD or DVD. Now, let’s take it a step further.
Let’s say you’ve done all of that. What happens if even those DVDs get damaged? Consider making duplicates of your DVD copies and sending one or more to relatives in far-flung locations. This was a tip shared by Brewster Kahle of the Internet Archive at Rootstech. His advice was to send your back-up copies as far away as possible.
Brian Donovan of Eneclann presented a session on efforts to digitize Irish records. He began with a brief history of the records in the country, covering the 1922 destruction of the public records office, which resulted in the destruction of pre-1851 censuses, more than half of the available parish registers and pre-1700 records.
The destruction didn’t stop there. Bureaucratic decisions destroyed later census records. Irish apathy also led to the disappearance of value genealogical resources.
Then Donovan turned to more hopeful news about current efforts to digitize those records that are still available.
The Irish Genealogical Project at www.Irish-roots.ie provides and index only, no images, of many parish registers, civil and census records, tithe books, primary valuation and more.
Irishgenealogy.ie, an initiative of the Department of Tourism, also is working on parish registers, but not all counties are represented.
The National Library, at www.irishorigins.com, has the Griffiths valuation for 1846 & 1852 available.
There are several new initiatives coming along. FamilySearch may have tithe records from 1823-1837. A tithe was a religious tax collected by then established church of the time. Household list akin to census enumerations are provided in theses records.
The National Library has a RFP out to digitize microfilm records. The ETA on this is unknown.
Eneclann has several projects in the works. Sign up for their e-newsletter to find out how to access the below databases as they come online. Their web site is www.Eneclann.ie.
In May, records from the landed estates court, which sold land from bankrupt estate owners, will go online. These records include mortgage and “portions” from the mid-19th century (1848-1852). The list of renters numbers 600,000.
Prison registers, which give details about relatives and victims, will go online on this summer. Ireland had the most prisons per population in Europe and millions of prisoners.
Petty Sessions, which are just like it sounds (think the Judge Judy of 19th-early 20th century Ireland), included criminal and civil cases. There are 15 million cases to 1910. These I’ll be available in about a year.
Dog license books! More pertinent than they sound. Every farmer had a dog and had to have a license. These records include their name, address and more. I missed the ETA on this project.
The Irish Revolutionary period was 1912-23. Of course, it was a very emotional period for Irish. The police records from the period are fascinating (they tracked everyone). They include mug shots, Volunteer records (private army raised against revolutionaries), and Army records (including search and raid records, court martials, intel files). Also missed the ETA on this one.
Eneclann is launching a new site on 3/17. Stay tuned!
One important reminder that Donovan mentioned: Many Irish changed religious affiliation for economic, legal reasons and many Protestants reverted back to Catholicism after impediments to owning land, etc., were lifted. Don’t let assumptions about your ancestors limit your searches!
This is the seventh in a series of posts in which I’m transcribing a document that belonged to my father titled “History of the 81st Field Hospital.” It details the hospital’s preparations in the U.S. before deployment and operations in Germany during WWII. This field hospital eventually reached German concentration camp survivors. Read from the beginning here.
[Page 7]
Early Monday morning, 30 April, an advance party of two officers and nine enlisted men left for Kaufburen, Germany, to make contact with the 54th Field Hospital, to which Unit A was to be attached as a fourth platoon to go into combat in support of a division. One officer and an ambulance returned to Weinsburg.
After many difficulties and after travelling 1500 miles, a total of six 2 1/2-ton trucks were secured from 132nd Evac Hospital to move our equipment and personnel. Authority to use these trucks was Seventh Army Advance Surgeon. On the whole, the organic transportation of field hospitals was found inadequate. We had six 6×6 trucks and one 10-ton tractor-trailer over and above the T/O & E and even so, vehicles were still insufficient in number to move the whole hospital at once. However, our excess transportation was used upon many occasions in helping move other field hospitals. In action, it proves most difficult to secure aid from QWC Trucking Companies since the field hospitals move as the line moves and when the line moves, unit with the greatest priority receive the QWC trucks.
On Thursday the advance party moved on from Kaufburen with the 54th Field Hospital Headquarters to Garmisch-Partenkirchen and secured five homes for living quarters. By Sunday evening, after much travail, all equipment and all personnel had been moved from Weinsburg to Garmisch-Partenkirchen.
Running water, electricity and central heating systems were available at our location. One ward and one squad tent were pitched to store equipment. One squad tent was pitched for mess. While Unit A was in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, the war ended and the 54th Field Hospital’s need for a fourth platoon no longer existed. No hospital was set up and the move had essentially proved to be nothing but a week’s vacation in the Bavarian Alps. No patients were treated.
Unit C Moves to Heilbrunn
An advance party of three officers and 18 enlisted men left Bad Mergentheim on 24 April. ON 25 April, the main body proceeded to the new area — a modern and very complete German hospital at Heilbrunn, (WS 0462) Germany.
The advance party labored under difficulties as the German occupants were being evacuated — German staff and German military patients under armed guard.
The hospital itself was found to be a very fine building built only a year before Germany went to war, and it’s equipment was complete in every detail. At first there was some difficulty due to lack of electric power, intermittent supply of water, and the fact that some of the facilities were out of order, but this was shortly remedied through assistance of AMG officials.
The problem of help in such a large plant was a big one, but we acquired a staff of German civilians for the kitchen, laundry and general cleaning, at which four Italian displaced persons also proved very useful.
Language difficulties were largely solved through the efforts of certain of our own personnel with the additional aid of a female interpreter, an American citizen, sent to us by the AMG Heilbronn. The arrival of a Russian nurse to [continued on Page 8]
This is the fifth in a series of posts in which I’m transcribing a document that belonged to my father titled “History of the 81st Field Hospital.” It details the hospital’s preparations in the U.S. before deployment and operations in Germany during WWII. This field hospital eventually reached German concentration camp survivors.
[Page 5]
We found all our buildings dirty with personal belongings left behind by the former occupants. Within 24 hours, and with the help of DP labor, we had all our facilities in working order and ready for operation. We found it more convenient and practical to secure our rations, water and gasoline through local distribution points. Our supplies (Medical and General) and also all hospital laundry were taken care of by our own headquarters.
It was found by the officer in charge of the blood unit servicing our platoon to be impractical for them to deliver blood each morning as is customary to field hospitals operating under normal conditions. It was agreed that whenever the need for blood should arise we could obtain some, and also keep enough blood on hand for our anticipated needs. It was further agreed that we should return all unused blood three days before expiration date and exchange it for fresh blood. We were serviced by a blood dispensing unit presently attached to the 132d Evac Hospital at Neckarsulm, 10 miles from our location.
Due to the difficulty of obtaining large size x-ray film from Medical Depots, we experimented with captured German x-ray film. We worked in close liaison with the French dispensary located in the DP Center. We agreed that all DP patients must first pass through the French dispensary. If they required hospitalization or further dispensary treatment which could not be obtained at the French dispensary for lack of proper equipment and supplies, they were then admitted to our hospital, and if the patient was a member of the DP Center at Weinsburg, they they passed through the French dispensary also.
We received patients from the 93d, 95th and 132d Evac Hospitals as well as from the Weinsburg DP Camp. Our capacity was 100-beds but could have been expanded to 150-beds if necessary. We had our own electricity throughout the entire area generated by our own generators. Also telephone communication was established from the administrative building to the various wards through field phones. Aside from the water we got each day, all other water was obtained through the town water supply which was very irregular. However, ample water was obtained for hospital use and also for the washing machine, which was used for all personnel laundry. Our mess facilities were in a tent and we had three latrines in the field to supplement the ones in our living quarters and hospital buildings. This was done to combat the irregular water supply necessary for proper sanitary methods in maintaining building latrines.
We didn’t have much captured material along medical lines to use in the hospital, but made the maximum use of desks, lamps, chairs, typewriters and other office equipment. The dispensary handled emergency cases in addition to our personnel. The Dental Clinic did a lot of emergency work from the DP Center. We had a visitor in the person of Lt Col Elder who was Chief Sanitary Inspector in charge of DP Centers for the Seventh Army.
We used to the maximum all the DP labor here for miscellaneous duties in wards, washing, general labor and maintenance work. This proved very satisfactory and also helped carry the load as far as our mess was concerned. 90 patients passed through the hospital while Unit A was at Weinsburg.
This is the fourth in a series of posts in which I’m transcribing a document that belonged to my father titled “History of the 81st Field Hospital.” It details the hospital’s preparations in the U.S. before deployment and operations in Germany during WWII. This field hospital eventually reached German concentration camp survivors.
[Page 4]
At this point we would like to note the immense help to our water problem when an engineer company attached to us a driver and 750-gallon water truck. Our three water trailers, one per unit, was far inadequate for our needs. The large water truck solved our problem very satisfactorily.
A few days after Unit B moved on to Hammelburg, Germany, to set up separately, Unit A departed for Weinsburg, Germany.
Unit B Moves to Hammelburg
Four days prior to our arrival, American infantry and tanks had liberated the area and the Germans had fled, taking with them several hundred American prisoners. Our mission was to set up a 2,000-bed hospital for displaced persons.
We had available an administration building, two hospital ward buildings, a large modern apartment building and two smaller ones, a stucco house, and a warehouse. This constituted the hospital compound but there were a great many other buildings and facilities in the surrounding area, the sum total of which had recently housed a large German military officer corps and 10,000 prisoners.
At the time we arrived the buildings were still occupied by German civilians and prisoners. We quickly evacuated the civilians who attempted to take everything but the walls with them. One-hundred German civilians from the town of Hammelburg were utilized for several days to aid in the cleaning of the looted, ransacked buildings. A detail of 15 MP’s arrived to guard us against an expected SS attack. These MP’s were later replaced by a battery of MP’s who took over policing the entire area.
Some of the buildings adjoining the hospital compound which had previously housed the German officers were very lavishly appointed and recreation facilities were luxurious. Much material which they had gathered by looting allied countries were left behind.
Our mess was overloaded with guests, including the British officers who ran the prison compound.
Work was completed for the handling of 112 patients and the quartering of all personnel of the 81st Field Hospital. Near the end of our stay, orders were received to increase our bed capacity first to 150 and then to 500, but this work was shortly interrupted by the news that the Third Army was to take over the area. We moved out without ever having officially admitted a single patient.
Unit A Moves to Weinsburg
When our unit arrived a Weinsburg, we found at our disposal for living quarters five private homes, procured by our advance party through the local AMG. Three houses were utilized for enlisted personnel, one house for officers and one for nurses. We also secured through the AMG three buildings for our hospital. These buildings were located in the DP Center which was adjacent to our hospital. The entire area was part of a German prison camp for allied officers. These had been moved out only a few days before we arrived.
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