Family Photograph, Circa 1950

Perhaps the first thing you notice about this photo are all the cracks, bends, and scratches across its surface.  Who knows what trauma it saw in its life.  My mom liked it enough to save it in her photo album, scratches and all.  Her later memory dated it to Christmas, 1951.  I would date it closer to late 1950.  The baby on Mom's lap was born in January, 1950, and looks about a year old, hence my date estimation.

Except for the fact that my sister's beautiful face is missing, I love this old snapshot.  There is my brother, in play clothes, wearing a delightful, happy smile.  He sits close to my father who is dressed in a suit and tie with a serious expression.  Beside Dad sits my smiling mother wearing what seems to be a casual dress.  I'm the baby in my mother's lap wearing a dress.  And sitting in front on the floor in front of my father is my sister, also dressed in play clothes.  We can't see her expression because she performed some pre-digital photo editing. 

As much as I love it, this is a curious photo to me.  Why was my father the only one dressed up?  Why did he look so serious when the others looked so happy?  And why did my sister scratch out her face?  Where was the photo taken?  Who took it?  And, my usual question when I look at old photographs, what happened just before and just after the shutter snapped?  I hope my brother or sister will remember where and when this photo was taken, perhaps who took it, and the story that goes with it.

The photo editors in the Facebook group Random Acts of Photo Restoration perform some amazing miracles on photos in worse condition than this one.  I know someone could remove the cracks and creases but I'm not sure about my sister's face.  My husband suggested I find a photo of my sister taken at about the same time as this photo and ask if her face could be replaced.  It's worth considering, just so long as an explanation accompanies the repaired photo.

This post was written for Amy Johnson Crow's 2019 version of 52 Ancestors.  The post topic for the week was "Family Photo."

--Nancy.

Copyright ©2019, Nancy Messier.  All Rights Reserved. 
Do not copy or use any content from this blog without written permission from the owner.

Married Fifty Years - Saturday Night Genealogy Fun

Thanks to Randy of GeneaMusings and Marcia Philbrick of Heartland Genealogy for the Saturday Night Genealogy Fun this week.  

This week's challenge was to answer these questions.

How many of your ancestors were married for FIFTY years?  What is the longest marriage of your ancestors in your tree (from marriage to first death of a spouse, or divorce)?

I guessed there would be few long marriages among my ancestors because it seemed like there were so many early deaths.  I was surprised to learn how wrong I was.  You may also notice that some marriages are not included; that's because I don't have accurate dates for them or do not know who the ancestors are.

These are my ancestors and the lengths of their marriages:

My parents
Lee and Audrey Meinzen Doyle - 49 years (1938-1987)

My grandparents
Gust and Beulah Mae (Gerner) Doyle - 1 year 3 months (1911-1913)
W. C. Robert Meinzen & Emma Bickerstaff - 59 years (1914-1973)

My great-grandparents
William and Tressa Rose (Froman) Doyle - 51 years (1885-1936)
Frederick K. and Elvira (Bartley) Gerner - 53 years (1872-1926)
Henry C. and Elizabeth (Armitage) Meinzen - 50 years (1870-1920)
Edward Jesse and Mary (Thompson) Bickerstaff - 49 years (1891-1940)

My great-great-grandparents
Andrew & Elizabeth Jane (Laws) Doyle - 45 years (1863-1908)
John and Catherine (Saylor) Froman - abt. 10 years (~1861-1871)
Christian and Mary/Elizabeth (Stahl) - unknown
Dixon and Rebecca (Smith) Bartley - 61-63 years (~1836/1838-1899)
Abel and Eliza (Hartley) Armitage - 9 years (1847-1856)
Ellis and Emma V. (Nelson) Bickerstaff - 17 years (1861-1878)
John and Lydia (Bell) Thompson - 51 years (1872-1923)

My great-great-great-grandparents
William and Martha (Reay) Doyle - 13 years (1825-1838
Robert and Elizabeth (Thompson) Laws - 47 years (1834-1881)
Jacob and Elizabeth (Shaefer) Saylor - 20 years (1838-~1858)
William and Susanna/Susan (Holmes) Bickerstaff - 63 years (1830-1893)

Across five generations:
Only seven of my ancestral couples had marriages of 50 years or longer.
The longest marriage was 63 years.  Another couple may have been married 63 years (but the marriage year is still uncertain).

Thanks for the Saturday Night Genealogy Fun, Randy and Marcia.

--Nancy.

Copyright ©2019, Nancy Messier.  All Rights Reserved. 
Do not copy or use any content from this blog without written permission from the owner.
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The Things You Learn about Ancestors!

When I was a child I thought all women sewed, did needlework, created things.  The women in my family, particularly my mother and grandmother, made curtains, sewed pillowcases and dish towels, darned socks, repaired clothes and bed sheets, and sewed clothes for their daughters and themselves.  My mother embroidered, my grandmother crocheted.  And women of that time might sew quilts.  My mother cut and hand-stitched pieces of bright fabric to make Dresden Plate quilt blocks which she then sewed into quilts for my sister and me.  My mother and grandmother assembled a quilting frame in my college-student-brother's unused bedroom and they sat and quilted.  It was the only time I ever saw either of them quilt and I thought it was a one-off.  Women created what they and their families needed using needle and thread, and I thought they either learned the simple things when they were little girls and figured out the more difficult ones, like quilting, as the need arose.

Like my mother and grandmother, I learned needlework skills when I was a small.  My grandmother was Emma (Bickerstaff) Meinzen.  She taught me to crochet and my mother taught me to embroider and sew before I could read.  I stitched by hand, learned to hem, and sewed on buttons.  When I was a few years older Mom trusted me to use her old black Singer sewing machine.  I made things for my dolls and learned to sew clothes for myself.  These days, still using Mom's old black Singer, I cut and sew fabric to create quilt tops, then layer and hand quilt them.  They keep us warm for afternoon naps and on cold winter nights.

A few years ago my daughter and I visited my aunt, my mother's sister, who, at the time, was in an assisted living home.  She had a small apartment with a living room, kitchen, bathroom, and a bedroom.  She was eager to show us around her apartment.  When we arrived in her bedroom, a bright Grandmother's Flower Garden quilt covered her bed.  It was beautiful and I was in awe.

When I asked who made it she said, "My mother."  At first I thought I misunderstood so I asked her to clarify.  "My mother and your grandmother Meinzen made it."  I didn't know Gramma could quilt and wondered how I didn't know this about her.  My aunt went on to explain that when Gramma was younger she had belonged to the quilting group at church.  She and the women got together and quilted every week.  My aunt said Gramma was an excellent quilter.

Gramma was a quilter?!  A real quilter, not just a woman who cobbled together fabric and di the best she could to stitch together front, batting, and back into a quilt?!  It was such a surprise to learn this.  And yes, from the looks of the quilt on my aunt's bed, she was an excellent quilter.  When I came home I pulled out the Dresden Plate quilt my mother had made and she and my grandmother had quilted.  An excellent quilter, indeed.  The stitches were fine and even, probably award winning.

Gramma died when I was in my 20s.  (As it turns out, yesterday was the 46th anniversary of her death.)  During all the years I knew her, neither she nor anyone else ever mentioned that she was a quilter or that she'd belonged to a quilting group.  How did I only just come to know this a few years ago?!

The things you learn about ancestors can be surprising!

This post was written for Amy Johnson Crow's 2019 version of 52 Ancestors.  The post topic for the week was "Surprise."

--Nancy.

Copyright ©2019, Nancy Messier.  All Rights Reserved. 
Do not copy or use any content from this blog without written permission from the owner. 
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Libraries I Love for Family History Research

The Columbus Metropolitan Library on Grant Street, in downtown Columbus, was the first library I used for family history research.  I was familiar with the library for other uses but not family history.  It was the library where I learned how to search census records.

Since my first searches there the library's resources have expanded.  They had a good collection of books and resources for local history, for all Ohio counties, plus books for most other states.  When the powers that be decided that the State Library of Ohio should not have a genealogy collection, many of their books were given to CML and their collection expanded to have books for all the states in the U.S.  CML now has a decent collection of online genealogy resources, too, which you can view here, but you'll have to dig a little deeper to find books for your geographic areas of interest.  Use the card catalog, or visit in person.

At one time the State Library of Ohio had a great collection of books for family history research but, as I said above, it was decided that genealogy books did not belong in the state library, so they were dispersed to other libraries.  Nonetheless, they still hold census records, including agricultural censuses, which can be a great resource if there are farmers among one's ancestors.

I've been to the Family History Library in Salt Lake City.  Unfortunately, my family and I were passing through the city on our way to another destination.  As a beginning researcher I hadn't taken any of my papers with me because I didn't expect to have time to spend at the library.  I have to say, the missionaries there seemed fairly disappointed.  They encouraged me to think of just one ancestor's name to research.  If they were disappointed, I was even more so.  All those resources and no time!

There are some online, digital collections I've used, too.

• The Digital Shoebox Project in an online resource of family history books, obituaries, postcards, and other images collected from a number of libraries in the eastern cities and counties of Ohio.  Perhaps sometime in the near future I'll write a post with more detail about the resources available there.
• WorldCat 
• Digital Public Library of America 
• Google Books
• Internet Archive 
• Internet Archive Genealogy 
• Internet Archive Books

Where would I be in my family history research without libraries and their free resources?!

This post was written for Amy Johnson Crow's 2019 version of 52 Ancestors.  The post topic for the week was "At the Library."

--Nancy.

Copyright ©2019, Nancy Messier.  All Rights Reserved. 
Do not copy or use any content from this blog without written permission from the owner.
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