For Auld Lang Syne: "A Little Tea Party" Redux

It's such a rewarding feeling to reap the fruit of these blog-posting labors, especially when a descendant finds a family photo here on A Family Tapestry. As I mentioned yesterday, I want to take the time in the next few days to update you on some of the emails I received, subsequent to sharing pictures from other people's family history.

You may remember the little lost photo album I began writing about almost exactly a year ago. Of course, the tiny treasure has since found its way back home, hand-delivered by a distant cousin to the granddaughter of Harry and Alice Reid, the couple who had originally mailed it off from Cork, Ireland, as an extended Christmas greeting.

That little photo album continues to reach out and call family members who, as it turns out, are also interested in their family history.

One of the photos in this album which connected me with current-day relatives of its 1936 subjects was the one labeled "A Little Tea Party." If you remember, the summertime setting included a photograph of sixteen individuals, all named in the album by Alice Hawkes Reid. Some of those people identified in the picture were young children at the time: besides the two Reid children, Ruby and Iris, there was a young girl named Daireen Foott and a young boy labeled as "Alfy" Allen.

Last summer, I had the opportunity to exchange emails with Daireen, who still lives in Ireland and now takes an interest in her family history. In one letter, she mentioned,

It is really interesting what things crop up when we are able to make contact so easily, and with the common interest of genealogy research.... I spend large parts of my days trying to sort and transcribe letters and research notes left by my ancestors over several hundred years, and storing my efforts on computer and with hard copies.

It was because of her avid interest in her family history that I had originally been able to contact her—owing to a connection she had with another family researcher who lives in Canada, and thanks to some search engine magic by a reader here at A Family Tapestry for leading me to that connection.

Yet another connection was just recently made through another person listed in that Tea Party photograph. The newlywed husband of a granddaughter of Alfie Allen got in touch with me, having discovered the photograph. Wishing to spruce it up with the digital wizardry now available for graphic design, this man wanted to obtain a scan of the original photograph to see if it could be enlarged and transformed into a Christmas gift for his bride, who also keeps many photographs of family members over the generations. So close and yet so far away, this Cork contact hadn't realized that the original is now resident in a place in his own county. This is a project that will need some additional networking to fulfill, but it is nice to hear from the people who radiate out from the list in that Little Tea Party entry.

Perhaps because there were so many people mentioned in that photo album, I've enjoyed receiving other such contacts, not just from folks connected to the names listed in the Tea Party portrait, but regarding other names mentioned in the album's pages. It is encouraging to see people coupling their interest in their family's history with the powerful connecting capabilities of this awesome digital age. We've finally come to a point where we really can reach out and touch somebody, no matter where in the world that someone might be.

Meanwhile, Another Story Concludes

While I am floundering to figure out who my paternal ancestors were, and where they originated in Poland, I need to set aside the false start of that story to jump back in time to conclude another research story. The journey of that little photo album I found in an antique shop in northern California has finally reached its destination at the place where it originated in County Cork, Ireland.

This is a story long awaiting its conclusion. I found the album a couple years ago—at least I think; I didn't really mark down the date. The first post here on the story of the photo album came almost eighty years after the tiny package was mailed as a Christmas gift in 1936. By April of this year, I had discovered the identity of, and made contact with, a living granddaughter of Harry and Alice Hawkes Reid, the couple who sent the album. The Reids' granddaughter, Heather, helped me figure out who might have been the recipient, and with that hunch, I mailed the album to a relative, Rita, living in the States.

The final step in the plan to take this album full circle back to the originating family was for Rita's daughter Lollie to bring the album with her on her travels to Ireland this summer. At that point, Lollie would present the album to Heather, and the journey would be completed.

I received the news just a couple days ago, and was elated to hear. As planned, the two women—who are actually second cousins—met in Ireland. As a kind gesture making me feel a part of the process, they arranged to send me photos of the occasion, which I definitely appreciated.

Even though I've researched almost every step of the way from the sending of that album in 1936 to its discovery a few years ago in northern California, it still amazes me to realize that that one small package had made a trip with so many winding detours. More than that, it fascinated me to see all the stories that can be gleaned by studying one solitary object representing a sliver of the lifetime represented by just one family. Such a few pages offered up so many hints to a family's history!

Perhaps camping on that thought for this season will help encourage me, as I delve into the same process once again—only now, rather than names from Ireland, this time with a few names from Poland.

 

Thinking of August

Yes, I know August is just a few days away. It isn't the calendar that prompts my thoughts about August, though. It's the full circle of an eighty year long journey that is finally going to be completed in just a few days. And I can't wait until it happens.

If you recall, just after Christmas in 2016, I began a series in an attempt to figure out the origin of a mystery photograph album I found in an antique store near my home.

With work on the puzzle taking nearly four months to conclude—and with lots of help from many interested friends—the album which was sent as a Christmas present in 1936 finally gave up some of its secrets. The senders, it turns out, were one Harry and Alice Reid from County Cork in Ireland. The recipients may well have been the family of Harry's emigrant brother Richard, by then living in upstate New York.

By mid-March, I was talking to the granddaughter of Harry and Alice, who then put me in touch with the suspected recipient—well, actually, Richard's daughter, who now lives in Oklahoma. By the second week of May, that little photo album—no longer a mystery—began the first leg of its journey home to Ireland when I mailed it to Richard's daughter Rita, who wanted to see it once again.

And now begins the rest of the journey homeward. And this is why August is on my mind: in a matter of days, Rita's daughter will be traveling to visit family in Ireland. When she returns to County Cork, she will be bringing that little album, which she'll return to Harry and Alice Reid's granddaughter in the very place where the journey once started.

Of course, I'm thrilled to see the album come home again. But more than that, I'm pleased to see others catch that same enthusiasm for finding tokens of micro-history—those small treasures representing a family's history—and personally becoming part of the solution in guiding those objects back home to those who will appreciate their return.

Just the other day, someone found me courtesy of an online search, on account of that very issue: trying to reunite photographs with family. I'll share that story tomorrow, but as it turned out, those who are familiar with genealogical research techniques are already suited to the task at hand. And once the goal is accomplished and the objects reunited with the family of origin, the enthusiasm for sharing a part in that process is indeed contagious.

The beauty of stories such as this is that we all can play our part in reuniting these lost treasures with their families of origin. As one, then another success story makes its way out, to be shared with others, the effort seems to be amplified. More people realize ways they can help. The dynamics of crowdsourcing kick in, and word spreads—perhaps through blogs or social media, perhaps through groups or friends-of-friends. The more that help, the more those success stories multiply.

We are all so much more inter-connected than we realize, especially in this age of instant and global contact online. In an unofficial yet organically-grown way, our genealogical skills are leading us to a very different kind of Random Acts of Genealogical Kindness.

Above: Front cover of a photograph album sent as a Christmas gift from an Irish couple, Harry and Alice Reid, to an undisclosed recipient in 1936. The album is soon to make the final part of its journey home.   

Going Back a Long Way

Working on this Hawkes line from the mystery photo album I found in a local antique store reminds me that I have much research to do to verify the generations preceding the ones pictured in the album. The Hawkes family has such a long, interesting history, and yet, I've not been able to secure documentation for much of it beyond John Pim Penrose Hawkes' grandfather. Judging from the Hawkes family researchers I've corresponded with during this research, though, the family's pedigree can be traced back a long, long way.

One reason this comes to mind is due to the many people who have helped, along the way, with this search. Of course, it is easy to find several trees on Ancestry containing these Hawkes relatives, but it is correspondingly disappointing to see, as the owners' resources, such "verified" source documents as "Ancestry family trees." This, in my eyes, is no better than the blind leading the blind.

One reason I've wished to obtain documentation from a few generations prior to our target family members is, as I've mentioned, that I've been communicating with some other Hawkes descendants. Not from the immediate family of Alice Hawkes Reid's parents, of course, but with distant Hawkes cousins. So distant, in fact, that even they aren't sure just how they relate.

Since one reader, Intense Guy, had provided the link to a family tree naming one of the children mentioned in the post about the tea party at the Hawkes residence, I was led to an email address permitting me to correspond with one Hawkes descendant in Canada, and the very person, still in Ireland, who had been featured in that tea party group photograph.

It's been a treat to be able to correspond with those two women. Though neither was able to directly lead me to the descendants of Harry and Alice Reid, they certainly sent me kind responses to my questions, which I appreciated. It is certainly an odd inquiry to receive in one's inbox, agreed. To have such gracious responses was heartening.

So, yesterday was a day to send out thank you notes. Agreed, again, that such thank you notes are also unusual entities. But perhaps that will someday become the norm, as we delve further into genealogical connectivity in this age of universal contact, thanks to the Internet.

Another Trip, Another Phone Call

Has it been only a month since my trip back east to Florida—the very day in which I received the message confirming connection with the granddaughter of the Irish couple from my mystery photo album? It was in the airport that morning I had checked my messages one last time before boarding my flight. There, Heather had responded, confirming she had received my messages and wanted to talk.

Phone calls in busy airports, though, do not blend well with this type of conversation, so we waited until a mutually convenient—and quiet—time to make our first phone contact.

Once again, I've received an answer to a tentative message—in the affirmative, and with a request to talk by phone. If not from the actual recipient of that mystery photo album, from someone who could possibly be the oldest living relative of this family line. She likely has a lot of information to share. And I am keen to hear it.

But travel plans have once again gotten in the way. For a phone call of this type, I'd not only need a quiet place but a space to spread out with note paper and my online database—that "secret" family tree I constructed to help keep track of my guesses as to who this family was that sent the album, and just who its recipient might have been.

Meanwhile, though, we do have email. And we've been exchanging notes—on my part, pumping out an endless volley of questions about the Reid and Hawkes families, and from the other end, a gracious stream of answers plus the bonus of more photographs.

Once that call has been made, all that remains is to make arrangements to return the album to the family in County Cork whose grandparents had sent it westward, over eighty years ago. In the interim, though, I have one more small bit of research business to attend to: contact all the others researching these family lines who had helped me along the way to accomplishing this goal.

We're Stuck in Lodi, Too

Back before Saint Patrick's Day, when the unsolved mystery of that photo album I found pushed me to go hunting, one last time, for a living descendant in Ireland, I posed my quandary to a Facebook group of genealogical society members in County Cork.

When I mentioned I found the album five thousand miles from where it originated, one of the group members piped up, "So what's five thousand miles away?" When I informed this seasoned society member the answer to his question was a town called Lodi, California, he retorted with the inevitable: "Stuck in Lodi."

Yes, it's true: if anyone from that time frame remembers anything about the place, they remember the 1969 Creedence Clearwater Revival release by that same name.

Lodi, however, has a life of its own, separate and apart from that doubtful claim to fame. A city of about sixty five thousand, among other features, it sports a revitalized downtown which is finding its way amidst the exurbs of the more tony Bay area communities.

Right on the main street running through that downtown area sits the antique shop where I found the photograph album that turned out to belong to Harry and Alice Hawkes Reid of County Cork, Ireland. That's the shop where I returned, the other morning, to see if I could find an answer to my question of how the thing managed to get here from there.

The name of the place is Secondhand Rose. According to the shop's website, it has been in existence for twenty years, and has been established in the same location since 2000.

The difficulty—well, for me, at least—is that this is not just one shop. It is actually a collection of "shops," each the domain of a separate dealer. Right now, the store boasts forty five such dealers in their cooperative. And one of them—an unnamed one of them—is the person responsible for finding the album which eventually got sold to me. But I won't know anything more about the details unless this dealer decides to give me a call.

And so, I'm stuck, too—stuck in Lodi.

You know me: impatient. I want to know the answer now. But it's been two days since making my request, and I haven't heard a thing. I've even answered what turned out to be spam calls, all for the sake of not missing this caller from the antique dealers' secret society. Do you know how hard that is for me?! This is true dedication.

Meanwhile, it seems I may have an answer coming from a different direction. The person Heather had thought might know something about the album's journey to California has responded to my tentative plea via Facebook messenger. We are going to talk. Soon.

Photo courtesy Wren.

 

Back to Where We Started

Some things are never easy—but they are still worth the try.

It occurred to me, while puzzling over how a 1936 photograph album from Cork, Ireland, could make it all the way to California when there was no one in the family living here at the time, that perhaps I could find a different way to answer my question.

After all, though it took almost three months to figure out where the album came from—and who the family was, sending it—some things may not lend themselves best to genealogical solutions. Perhaps there was another way to discover how the album landed in the antique shop where I found it.

I had noticed there were two unobtrusive white stickers affixed to the back of the album. The purpose of one of them, of course, was to notify the potential buyer of the asking price. The other, also bearing numbers, was likely a code of some type—though handwritten, hopefully some sort of tracking or inventory code.

I don't know much about how to run an antique store. Presumably, the owner goes to special locations where such treasures may be bought, obtains items most likely to move quickly off the store's shelves, and adds them to the store's inventory—hopefully for the duration of a brief shelf life.

Since it was my daughter who introduced me to the antique shop in the first place, I ran my idea by her to see if it was reasonable: go back to the store and see if the code could lead me to where the item had been obtained by the shopkeeper.

We made a mid-morning coffee date and started out on our expedition, back to the antique store. Arriving in town at what seemed to be a quiet hour of business, we breezed in the door and found ourselves talking with the woman behind the counter in a matter of minutes. While she was willing to help, right away she brought up the down side: the store was actually a consignment shop, and the code on the back of my album actually told her which contact person was responsible for that object.

Only problem: for whatever confidentiality reasons there are among antique dealers, she could not reveal her source for this sale item. But she did offer to forward to that person any message I might want to send.

So there I was, yesterday morning—before my cup of coffee—pulling out a business card and scribbling a note on the back.

How do you explain a story like the one we've just been through in the past three months? It doesn't really fit on the back of a business card—nor on the paper the shopkeeper so kindly offered for the continuation of the tale. I thought about including a link to A Family Tapestry so this antique dealer could read it for herself—but then, I found out she was likely not online, herself.

All I could do was write my plea for assistance, and walk out, hoping for the best. And really, considering I probably bought the album at least two years ago, how could I expect anything at all?

Well, at least I could expect my cup of coffee. With a shorter visit than expected at that lovely little antique store, now we'd have even more time to enjoy it.

Headed to California

If a single item from one's family estate ended up in California, wouldn't it be reasonable to presume the rest of the estate might have been kept in California, as well?

Of course, my premise that the mystery photo album I found in a California antique shop came from a local estate sale may be flawed. Who knows? Perhaps antique dealers search far and wide for the trinkets they sell for under twenty dollars. But I doubt it.

Then again, perhaps the album, while ending up in California, might have originally been mailed to a recipient who lived elsewhere in the United States—or anywhere else on the continent, for that matter.

I think these things out, over and over, as I try to discern that invisible pathway taken by that mystery photo album, from the County Cork home of Harry and Alice Reid to its unknown destination, back in 1936. Since no surnames were used in the notes accompanying the photos on each page of the album, I presume that means it was a gift meant for family, who would know, despite their lack, just who was meant by each nickname.

But which family member might have been the recipient? After all, though Alice Hawkes Reid had only one brother—an unmarried one at that, back in 1936—she also had twelve aunts and uncles, just on her father's side of the family. I haven't even begun to trace the generations descending from her mother's side of the family. And if the recipient was someone on her husband's side of the family, Harry had at least seven siblings that I've been able to find, and several more half-siblings much older than he.

Of those possibilities which I have been able to document, I had found one brother on the Hawkes side of the family who might eventually have settled in Los Angeles. While that city might be the epitome of California in many people's minds, it also is a distance of at least three hundred fifty miles from the shop where I retrieved the photo album. Besides, the 1948 California death record for Richard Hawkes, while providing the right mother's maiden name and birth outside the country, also contained the wrong middle name. Could it be just a coincidence that his parents' surnames were Hawkes and Gibbons?

True, Alice Hawkes Reid had two uncles who had immigrated to another part of the United States—both originally heading to the New York metro area, then moving beyond. But we've already examined the life of Thomas Gibbons Hawkes—who, incidentally, had died long before the 1936 album was composed—and that of his descendants for possible California connections without much success. And his brother—and their father's namesake, Quayle Welsted Hawkes—though moving to Westchester County in New York, had also died long before our mystery album was sent.

On the other side of Alice's family, though, there may have been some in-laws who could qualify as California recipients. Not that they were there in California in 1936—but at least they arrived there some time after that point, bringing their belongings with them. At least, we can presume.

The one most likely candidate family would be that of Harry Reid's older brother, Richard. Born in 1887 at Grange Cottage in County Cork, Richard eventually enrolled as part of the Canadian Over-Seas Expeditionary Force during the first World War. Eventually, he ended up in Canada, where he married Amy Lucking. Together, they became parents of a son and three daughters.

By the time the third child was born, the family was no longer living in the Toronto area, but in Buffalo, New York. While I realize Buffalo is a far cry from California—even northern California—the family does eventually get around to making a California connection. At least two of the four children spent some of their adult years living in California. A third may also have lived there for a while. Best discovery yet: some of those California residences could be considered to be reasonably close to the location of the shop where I found that photo album.

Could any of those nieces or nephews of Harry and Alice Reid have inherited a photo album sent originally to their parents in Buffalo, New York? Could they have kept it all those years, while moving cross-country to a new home in sunny California?

Those are the types of questions I have for one of those family members, once we connect and can talk about it.

In the meantime, another idea occurred to me: what if the owner of the antique store kept a log of where each inventory item originated? Could it be possible that there is a record of where the photo album was obtained by the shop?

That's a project for another day. Soon.

That Secret Family Tree

It started out as a place to accumulate—and then sort through—all the miscellaneous facts I had been gathering as I pondered the family whose discarded photo album ended up in my possession. The jumble of notes over hunches, guesses, conjectures and outright mistakes needed some sort of mechanism with which to make sense of it all. So I started a new family tree.

Not in the usual manner, of course. All the trees I've posted at Ancestry—and elsewhere over the years, for that matter—have been publicly accessible. I wouldn't have it any other way. How else would I tempt distant cousins to get in touch? If I made my trees a secret, no one would have the incentive to connect.

This tree was different, though. For one thing, it wasn't my family tree; it was someone else's—and a stranger's, on top of that. What if someone became incensed over my gall in posting details on a family that didn't even belong to me? Worse, what if I got something wrong? No sense putting errors out there, in the ether, for passers-by to snatch away and add to their own mismatched tree.

So when I put up my jumble of notes on the Hawkes—and then, eventually, the Reid—families, I made the whole thing not only a private tree on Ancestry, but an unsearchable tree. A secret only I could know.

Now that I've met Harry and Alice Reid's granddaughter, Heather, I've learned more about the family related to those creators of that photo album sent as a Christmas greeting, back in 1936. In particular, when Heather reminded me to take a look at the Reid side of the family, I discovered a family, much likes the Hawkes family, with many siblings, all striking out in life, headed in far distant directions.

As it turns out, there were several candidates from Harry Reid's generation who could have been the recipients of the couple's photography gift, some of whom actually may have lived in California, the Irish album's final destination. While I've already reached out to contact a descendant of one of those family members, it would be helpful to review all the possibilities here, one by one, over the remainder of this week. Each candidate has his or her pros and cons, thus the choice may not be an easy one. Mulling over the possibilities by writing out these thoughts may help zero in on the likely candidate.

In the meantime, that secret tree may not remain such a secret. I'm finding that, with each family member I contact, I may as well invite that person to view the tree and advise me on its accuracy. After all, I've now heard from two family members who mentioned wanting to share an old, barely legible handwritten family tree passed down through the years. In exchange, I may as well offer to share the details I've gleaned from this fascinating journey learning about the history of two families from County Cork, Ireland.

Above: Undated photograph of Alice Hawkes Reid at Bride Park with her parents, John Pim Penrose Hawkes and Sarah Suzanna Ruby Hawkes, and one of the Bride Park Westies. Photograph from the private collection of a member of the Hawkes and Reid families; used by permission.
  

The Last Hurdle

It's been quite a trip to go from finding a discarded photograph album in a local antique shop to actually determining whose family was featured on its pages. At this point, the goals of discovering the 1936 family's identity and getting in touch with a direct descendant can both be checked off our list. At some point soon, the little photo album will be making its way across the ocean, back home to Ireland.

There is, however, one more goal I'd like to see accomplished: to figure out just how the album made its way from County Cork to San Joaquin County in California.

While I've been writing about the various facts uncovered by researching the Hawkes and Reid families—the families of Alice and Harry, originators of the album—I've been testing possibilities for a family tree. Once I had discovered the likely identity of our easiest-to-determine member of the family—Penrose Hawkes, Alice's brother who immigrated to upstate New York to join a family member's business concern there—I had started sketching out a rudimentary family tree.

There were, of course, twists and turns. Guesses aren't always as insightful as we might hope they are. In time, I just gave up with the pen and paper route, and opened up a new tree on my Ancestry.com account. Making the tree not only private but unsearchable—lest someone think I was actually a relative or, worse, think I was the very one who held the key to bust through their unfathomable brick wall—I felt free to test my craziest hypotheses and juxtapose conjectures alongside confirmed relationships.

Since discovering Penrose's surname—well, maybe since confirming I had the right Penrose (as if there could be any others)—I had been working on my secret family tree. Since early January, the slow process of testing and discarding possibilities has yielded me a tree of 127 names. A modest count, that number is sufficient to help me find my way around the family constellation, although certainly not enough to confirm relationships I've since become aware of. After all, Penrose's father had twelve siblings, some of whom remained in the area around their County Cork home and some of whom had also made the trip across the Atlantic to either the United States or Canada.

In trying to put together a path of descendants—and thus the likely trail taken by that mystery photo album to its final destination in California—I've tested several possibilities which subsequently had to be discarded. I couldn't quite figure out who might have been the recipient of Harry and Alice's Christmas greeting album.

Of course, their granddaughter Heather has since reminded me to look to the other side of the family tree for answers. And, in that same phone conversation a couple weeks ago, she made a suggestion of her own. Perhaps if I contacted one specific family, I'd be able to talk to someone who might have some ideas on the subject.

Once again, I find myself reaching out and then holding my breath, hoping for an answer, but all the while thinking this is, indeed, a crazy pursuit.

  

The Trouble With Nicknames

When it comes to researching a name like Dolly, one can be fairly certain that is not a given name, but a nickname. When I tried to match the names on the Henry Reid family tree with those I had seen in that mystery photograph album I had found, I couldn't find any documented place for a name like Dolly. Nicknames require a researcher to find a way to know the rest of the story.

Now that we've met up with a descendant of the Reid and Hawkes families who has been quite gracious to provide the rest of the story on the people in that 1936 album, the names and faces are coming together. Except Dolly's.

Indeed, I wasn't even sure I had the right name. The handwriting on the page listing Chris and her companions at her "bungalow" had me wondering whether one of the women was actually named "Bolly."

But, as explained by Heather—Harry and Alice Reid's granddaughter whom we've since met here online—there was another family member who was called Dolly. Perhaps that was the one on the right of the threesome peering out the window in that old photograph. After all, we've since discovered that the other two women in that picture were sisters.

While Heather did send me several emails with photographs and descriptions, the way I found out about Dolly was a bit different. In trying to recall all the information she provided, I had thought at first that the little detail about Dolly had been discussed during our phone conversation. But looking back over my notes, I didn't find any mention there. Reviewing all the emails turned up not a clue as to where my memory had gleaned that detail.There had been such a flood of information coming all at once, and I had lost track of which source provided which fact—a sure signal that I need to reorganize my notes.

There had been one more item sent by Heather. It was a scan of a handwritten family tree. In impeccable—but tiny—print, it detailed the siblings from Harry's generation of the Reid family. Above one of his sisters' names, in even tinier print, was added the note, "Dolly."

It appears, then, that the Reid sibling who was known by that nickname was Harry's next older sister, Aphra. Born on May 31, 1889, in County Cork, by the time of the 1901 census, she was living elsewhere with an older Reid sister whom we've already met: Elizabeth, later to become Mrs. William O'Malley.

Apparently, at that time, Elizabeth was serving as a "national teacher" away from home in the County Cork village of Monkstown. In the household with Elizabeth was her half-brother Edmund Lombard Reid and her half-sister Aphra. At that point, Aphra was only eleven years of age. She was listed as a "scholar," and perhaps was staying there, rather than at home, for the educational opportunity.

By the time of the next census in 1911, Aphra was back home, presumably at Grange Cottage, with her father, another sister, and her younger brother Harry.

From that point on, there is little that can be gleaned from official documents, as the more current census records aren't available. However, a note from the superintendent registrar's district of Bandon provided the sad news that Aphra had passed away at the age of only fifty six, on March 28, 1945. Despite the winning smile she flashed for that photograph back in 1936, the one the family remembered as "Dolly" had remained single all her life. 

Discovering More About Chris

It was back in the middle of February when we were introduced, thanks to that mystery photo album I had found in an antique store, to three women named Chris, Alice and Dolly. A photograph showed the three of them peering from a window. The album's creator had labeled the picture "at the sitting room of Chris's bungalow."

Of course, we've since learned that the couple who sent that photo album—as a gift to an unnamed person or family—was Harry and Alice Hawkes Reid of County Cork, Ireland. The Alice in this particular photograph was not the Alice who had composed the collection, but, as we've discovered, Harry Reid's sister. With another photograph subsequently sent to me by a descendant of this family, we now learn who Chris was.

You will not find it surprising to learn that Chris was also a sister of Harry Reid.

Almost twenty years after that 1936 family photograph album was compiled for a Christmas gift, the Reid family was snapping pictures for another family occasion: the wedding of their daughter Ruby. One of the poses captured by the camera that April day in 1956 was that of the father of the bride, Harry Reid himself, standing with three of his sisters.

Along with a copy of this more recent photograph, his granddaughter Heather provided me with the names of each of them. There was Alice on the far left, arm in arm with her brother. On the other side of Harry was his sister, by then known as Edith Logan. And at the far right was Chris—yes, that Chris—known then by her married name as Chris Mack.

What I also realized, in reviewing those photographs I shared with you back in February, was the identity of another person named in the subsequent photo labeled "in one of Chris' fields." We've mentioned her yesterday, when realizing that "W. O'Malley" might actually be the Reids' brother-in-law, married to Harry's half sister, Elizabeth.

Sure enough, there was one more woman standing in the group out in Chris' fields, called Lizzie O'Malley. I'll take that as the Elizabeth who became bride of William O'Malley.

This photo album is turning out to be far more of a Reid family collection than one for the Hawkes family. I had certainly taken a wrong turn in my research assumptions; perhaps I was too smitten with the Hawkes family history and heritage to remember to gather details concerning both sides of the family history.

Now, if only we could figure out who Dolly was, we'd have the complete picture on those three who were smiling down from their bungalow window, back in the summer of 1936.

Above: Standing, left to right, on the day of Ruby Reid's 1956 wedding, were her aunt Alice Reid, her father Harry Reid, and her aunts Edith Logan and Chris Mack. The likely setting was at the Bride Park home of Ruby's maternal grandparents, John and Sarah Ruby Hawkes in County Cork, Ireland. Photograph from the private collection of a member of the Hawkes and Reid families, used by permission.
 

The O'Malley Connection

Almost as an afterthought, when Heather and I were exchanging emails on the Reid and Hawkes families, she added one little detail. I'm not sure why she thought to mention it, as she was mainly helping me understand how the various people in the two families related to each other, but I'm glad she did.

She had sent a volley of small commentaries during the preceding hours—including a hand-drawn family tree for the Reid side of the family, that critical component I had been missing. And, of course, she had sent more photos. Those wonderful family pictures.

Late into the evening—for her, at least—Heather sent one last brief message:

Almost forgot! Harry's half sister, Elizabeth, married a William B. O'Malley.

O'Malley! That was one of the surnames I hadn't been able to place in the family constellation. It was such an inconsequential part of the overall scheme of family relationships in that 1936 photo album I had found that I presumed I'd never figure it out. I had just assumed the man was a friendly neighbor stopping in to join in family festivities who had been captured forever in the family's photographic record.

But if you remember Alice Hawkes Reid's page labeled, "Off on a Spree," besides Harry Reid, his wife and the other Alice—the one whose identity we now know, thanks to Heather—there was a fourth person. Mrs. Reid had labeled that fourth person, simply, W. O'Malley.

And here we have a William B. O'Malley suddenly inserted into the family tree. Could "W" stand for William?

Harry Reid actually had several siblings. We've already learned that Alice Reid was his younger sister. Harry's father was actually married twice, and Harry and his sister Alice were among the children of the second wife. Thus, Harry had several older siblings, including, evidently, a half sister named Elizabeth.

Just to check, I turned to IrishGenealogy.ie, where among the digitized civil records I was able to locate a candidate for this Reid family marriage. Yes, there was a William Barnard O'Malley, son of "Alleyn Bernard" O'Malley, who had married a daughter of Henry Reid named Elizabeth.

The groom, at the time of the wedding, was an accountant who lived at 27 Old Blackrock Road in the city of Cork—a street name still in existence today. The bride-to-be, on her part, provided a reassuringly familiar residence name: Grange Cottage, the same location the Reids had mentioned in labeling some of the photographs in that 1936 album.

The wedding took place on August third, 1905, in the Reid family's church in the parish of Athnowen in what is now known as Ovens, County Cork, Ireland. Henry Reid—though it's not clear whether this was Elizabeth's father or brother—signed as one of the witnesses to the ceremony.

If it turns out that the man standing to the left of Harry's sister Alice Reid in the photograph from that 1936 album was one and the same as the husband of Harry's older sister Elizabeth, we now know just a little more about what Harry's brother-in-law looked like.

Alice's Wedding Day

It's been such a delight to see additional pictures of the family I first met by a chance encounter through an antique shop's old photo albums. Thankfully, there were enough details in that family keepsake to help me figure out just who that family might have been. Now that we've connected with Heather, a direct descendant of the family featured in that album—the Hawkes and Reid family from County Cork, Ireland—we have the opportunity to learn more.

Yesterday, I shared a photograph Heather sent me, showing her great grandmother, Sarah Susanna Ruby Hawkes, sitting sidesaddle on her horse. That provided a nice contrast to the later photograph we've already seen of Mrs. Hawkes in 1936.

After my introductory phone conversation with her, Heather provided another photograph which included Sarah on the day of her daughter Alice's wedding. The date was October 13, 1927, and the event was held at Bride Park House, which we've also seen, thanks to the family's photograph album.

At that earlier date, Sarah's husband, John Pim Penrose Hawkes, was still alive, providing us now with the only likeness we've seen of him. In addition, having Heather confirm the wedding date allowed me to find the digitized version of the marriage record for the couple we met as Harry and Alice. Harry, apparently, was formally known as Henry, but likely because he was son of another Henry Reid,  he informally was known by this nickname.

What is interesting to note, on this marriage record, was the listing of the witnesses to the ceremony. The person listed as J. P. P. Hawkes was likely Alice's brother, who himself was named after his own father, John Pim Penrose Hawkes. After the listing of the second witness—what looks like P. L. Ruby, doubtless a cousin to Alice from her mother's side of the family—there is another name listed: H. O'Malley.

We've seen that O'Malley surname before, in a couple entries in the 1936 photo album. As it turns out, Heather has provided some additional hints that there were some O'Malley relatives, so the few mentions in various photographs may well have been referring to family members.

Above: Pictured, on the day of Alice Hawkes' marriage to Harry Reid, were her mother, Sarah Susanna Ruby Hawkes, Alice, and her father, John Pim Penrose Hawkes. Setting of the photograph was in front of Bride Park House in County Cork, Ireland. Photograph, from the private collection of a member of the Hawkes and Reid families, used by permission.

Finding More About the Family Through Photographs

Being introduced to someone dubbed, simply, "Grannie" in the photo album I found in a local antique store, we saw an unnamed woman in 1936, dressed to go to church. Her dark clothing painted a somber picture, yet her posture presented an alert, energetic personality. There was no way to know, at the time I first saw the photograph, that "Grannie" was actually Sarah Susanna Ruby, the seventy one year old widow of John Pim Penrose Hawkes of County Cork, Ireland.

There is something inviting but often misleading about forming mental pictures of strangers, based solely upon what you see in their photographic likeness. I would never have guessed that that 1936 photograph belonged to a person of that age, though now that I've learned the family's history, I can verify that.

It is helpful to be able to view other portrayals throughout the person's lifespan to catch a glimpse of the personality. Thankfully, now that we've learned who the people in that photo album were, and have subsequently connected with a living descendant of "Grannie," we have the opportunity to not only view other pictures throughout their lifetime, but to learn more about them from our new contact person.

Heather, the great-granddaughter of the woman we first met as "Grannie," kindly sent a photograph of Sarah in her younger years—a picture its owner granted permission for me to share with you. Undated, the portrait shows Sarah sitting sidesaddle on one of the family's horses. Apparently an accomplished horsewoman, she was skilled at riding in that difficult position.

When Heather and I talked earlier this month, she mentioned how difficult it was to ride sidesaddle. Interestingly, I had just been at a carriage museum in central Florida in which a sidesaddle from that time period had been displayed. The chance to closely examine the saddle's configuration was fresh in my mind when Heather and I discussed her great-grandmother's riding capabilities. Perhaps this discipline was what contributed to her posture and bearing, all those years later when her likeness was captured, heading out the door one Sunday morning for church in 1936.

Above: Sarah Susanna Ruby Hawkes of County Cork, Ireland, riding sidesaddle in an undated photograph from the private collection of a member of the Hawkes and Reid family; photograph used by permission.

Remember Alice?

Call this the genealogical equivalent of Monday morning quarterbacking. We need to deconstruct the logic behind my assumptions in dealing with that mystery photograph album I found in a California antique store.

Granted, it was a pretty good job, finding my way from that lost album to the home of its originator, back in Ireland. But in the process, I did veer off in the wrong direction with some guesses.

Lesson learned: never forget to consider both sides of the family.

As much as I eventually knew the surname of the couple sending the gift of that album—it was Harry and Alice Reid—it never occurred to me to reconstruct a family tree for the Reid side of the family.

I have my excuses, of course. For one thing, there was such a focus on the Hawkes family—Alice Hawkes Reid's family. There were pictures of "Grandma"—her mother. Of course, there were some shots of Alice's perennially grumpy brother, Penrose, without whose unusual name I probably wouldn't even have considered purchasing the album. The group photo of the tea party guests included a listing of several Hawkes family members. There were even photographs of the Hawkes family's dog, Periwinkle, whose kennel club victories helped clinch the identity of the family's surname.

Other than that, the few stray mentions of other surnames didn't seem to provide any research traction.

And then there was the other Alice. The one whose unknown identity twisted me in contortions. I had tried everything—remember, the Hawkes family seemed to have a love affair with that name—yet nothing seemed to work out to provide me with confirmation of those guesses.

Now that I've connected with Heather, a Hawkes family descendant, in almost an instant, I've discovered my mistake. I was looking on the wrong side of the family tree. That mystery Alice was born a Reid, not a Hawkes.

It turns out Harry Reid had several siblings, including a sister who was about six years younger than he. Her name was Alice, and her arrival in the family constellation occurred in 1896.

Considering this gaping hole in my research, thanks to Heather's guidance, I'm making amends by filling in the Reid pedigree chart. Joining Alice were several siblings and half-siblings. And just like the rest of Alice Hawkes Reid's family, some of them dispersed to the four corners of the world, including Canada and the United States.

Hmmm. A clue. Perhaps, when I was considering the "voice" Alice Hawkes Reid used when penning her comments in the photo album, I should have remembered that other side of the family. It certainly makes sense, in reviewing her white-inked words, that the familiar tones regarding first-name-only family members could also have been reserved for the Reid side of the family.

Above: "Off on a Spree," Alice Hawkes Reid had labeled this photograph from their Christmas, 1936, family album. The four people listed left to right were "W. O'Malley, Alice, Harry + self." Alice Hawkes Reid always referred to herself in the album as "self." The woman standing second from the left, as it turns out, was actually Alice Reid, sister to Harry Reid.

Introducing a Grandchild

Her name is Heather. Long before she was born, her grandparents mailed off a small Christmas parcel containing a family photograph album. Who they mailed it to is a question still unanswered, but Heather and I are now on a joint mission to discover who the intended recipient might have been.

That 1936 album eventually made its way to an antique store in northern California, where I found it nearly eighty years later. Trust me: I am neither related to the Reids, who sent it, nor the Hawkes family which was mentioned in the album's pages. Finding the album was a chance occurrence. Considering the parcel traveled about five thousand miles in its journey from its origin in County Cork, Ireland, let's make that a very rare chance occurrence.

It took nearly three months of puzzling over the few hints provided in the album to determine the identity and location of Harry and Alice Hawkes Reid, the couple who originally sent the album. By now, almost all the questions prompted by the album have been answered—some noted in blog posts earlier this year, others resolved by information Heather provided in our several emails and a phone conversation.

Now, the focus is specifically on that last question still awaiting an answer: just how the album made its way to California. Who could it have been sent to? For me to guess—and I tried, every way I could, to figure this out—would have been an attempt so limited, especially because almost everything I know about the family is based on conjecture. But for Heather to assess the situation, it would be based on what she already knows about her relatives.

Heather, by the way, has given me permission to post these details on the rest of the album's story. In respect of her privacy, we agreed to call her, simply, Heather. She is quite as interested as I am in seeing the story about the album's journey completed, for which I am grateful. After all, you've got to admit, it is a curious landing place for an album which began its journey in Ireland. There is more to this story.

Not only will we examine some possibilities for recipients of the album, but Heather has kindly agreed to share some additional photographs of the people we've met in the album's pages.

That, however, I'll save for next week. The first item of business that needs to be tackled in this debriefing of the pursuit is to examine the point at which I missed the mark in my search. You see, I made some assumptions which may have led me in the wrong direction in my search for possible recipients. We'll take a look at the possibilities tomorrow.

Above: "The Dandelion Clock," by Irish-born American artist, William John Hennessy (1839 - 1917); courtesy Wikipedia; in the public domain.

An Unexpected Gift

I've already mentioned that, in my quest to locate a descendant of the family who dispatched that mystery photo album from Ireland in 1936, I finally made contact with one of Harry and Alice Reid's grandchildren the morning after Saint Patrick's Day. I had been running that morning, trying to get out the door and catch a flight to Florida, so I didn't actually bother to check my messages until I settled in at the airport. But yes, for me, it was still morning when I read the news.

The message came in on Facebook Messenger, the same medium which I had used to send the plea to the Cork Genealogical Society Facebook group—the request that made its stellar debut on Saint Patrick's Day.

This time, the answer wasn't as mundane as the mere granting of permissions to access a website. But it was a definite answer in the affirmative. After a polite "good morning"—remember, Irish time and California time differ by eight hours—my correspondent went on to confirm, "Yes, you've found the right family!"

The woman messaging me confirmed some details about the family of Harry and Alice Reid we've already noticed from the photo album. The Reids were her grandparents, and yes, they did live at a place called Bride Park. She confirmed the location in Ovens, County Cork. Wrapping up, she thanked me for being "so tenacious" and welcomed our continued correspondence.

You can be sure, airport setting or not, I was ecstatic—and lost no time in answering the message. Of course, I had to explain that we were en route to the other side of the continent, and that I wouldn't be able to say much more for the remainder of the day, but that—oh, believe me!—I certainly wanted to talk her ear off. There were so many more questions I still had to figure out.

As it turned out, what seemed like the unfortunate timing of having to be out of touch at the very moment in which a cascade of questions had erupted worked out for the best—and in the most charming way. While the success of my connection with the Reids' granddaughter was eclipsed by the necessities of air travel, my newfound friend in County Cork had her own schedule complexities to navigate.

You see, the same day she received my message, she was celebrating a special day of her own: that very day just happened to be her birthday. Bet she had no idea our connection would make its debut during her birthday festivities.

Above: "When the Boats Come In," oil on canvas by Irish Impressionist landscape artist, Walter Frederick Osborne (1859 - 1903); courtesy Wikipedia; in the public domain.

From Forums to Facebook

Once genealogists discovered the power of the Internet, researching our family history changed—for the better, in my opinion. My quest to connect with a living descendant of the Irish couple whose 1936 family album ended up in an antique store near my home provides a case in point.

Used to be, in the early days of online access, a researcher could post a "query" on a forum geared to readers who shared the same interests. There were a number of such communities online, of which the old Rootsweb forums are still in existence as one example, thanks to the fact that they are now hosted by Ancestry.com.

Anyone wishing to ask anything from simple requests for obituaries to more complex questions on a wide variety of topics could pose their question to a ready-made audience of other genealogy fans on these forums. Free, easy, with ready access, forums were an obvious go-to place for researchers in the 1990s and early years post-Y2K.

The buzz has migrated away from those old forums to new digs, now. With "everybody" on Facebook lately, it was a logical jump to ditch the old fashioned forums for a perkier place for instant access to genealogical answers.

Don't think that is a lightweight choice. The same social media which bring us mind-numbing digital drivel ("and this is a photo of what I had for lunch today") prove to be quite effective at dishing up instant answers to our research questions.

In fact, so many people have voted with the click of their mouse to head to Facebook that there are apparently over ten thousand Facebook pages and groups in the English language alone dedicated to talk about genealogical pursuits.

That fact was not lost on me when I puzzled over the best strategy for sending my mystery photo album back home to Ireland. I knew that many of the Facebook genealogy groups were organized by geographic location. If there was a group dedicated to researching genealogy for County Cork, Ireland, I wanted to find it.

It's easy to find organizations on Facebook: just enter the terms you are seeking in the search bar at the top of any Facebook page. The only drawback is that there are two types of entries on Facebook. One is for "groups" and one is for "pages." If an organization chooses the "groups" format when they set up their Facebook entity, they may choose to make that group open or closed.

Unfortunately, the County Cork entry on Facebook was a closed group. The bright side, though, is that most closed groups are quite willing to grant admission, just upon the mere request to be allowed to join. So I asked.

And waited.

It was then that I noticed the Cork Genealogical Society also has an open page, so I followed the links. Eventually, I noticed a sidebar mentioning the group's Facebook Messenger link and, next to a link with the words, "Message now," the promise, "typically replies within a day."

That was the spot where I jumped at the opportunity and sent my query. Even if the Society didn't permit me access to their closed group, I could still send my message. Hopefully, someone there wouldn't mind seeing if my target Hawkes and Reid families had descendants who still lived in the area.

Just before heading to bed the night before Saint Patrick's Day, I sent my official query via Facebook Messenger to the Cork Genealogical Society. By 1:51 the next afternoon (my time), the group's contact person informed me that I had been admitted to the closed group, and added, "Would you like me to cross post [my query from the open page messenger system onto the closed group] on your behalf?"

As soon as I could, I sent back a resounding, "Yes!" About fifteen minutes after that point, she responded, "I'll tag you so you can see the comments."

By that time—in the matter of one hour and eleven minutes of members' comments on that Saint Patrick's Day—the discussion thread was thirty responses deep. I had clippings of newspaper articles regarding the family, hints from other Society members, and a claim to have obtained the address of a specific, named, living descendant. It was at that spot in the sequence that someone mentioned recalling that the descendant may have been on Facebook, herself.

That was when I held my breath and tapped out a quick note to a total stranger, asking forgiveness for my intrusion on her privacy but...would she possibly be the granddaughter of one Harry and Alice Reid?

Facebook is wonderful in that it brings researchers together to crowdsource the answers to our research problems, but in no way can it actually guarantee that one participant will answer the question posed by another Facebook user. While this Saint Patrick's Day did indeed bring me some exciting news, the day closed without my actually achieving my goal of contacting the Reid family descendant I was seeking.

No Longer a Mystery

While Ireland was sleeping, I had sent the twenty-first century's equivalent of a message in a bottle. By the time I retired for the night—and while Ireland was just starting to awaken—someone five thousand miles from me was sending a message back.

It's been two weeks since I've mentioned anything about the family photograph album I had found in a northern California antique shop. Just because there's been no report doesn't mean I haven't had anything to report. On the contrary: a lot has transpired behind the scenes. This week, I'd like to share some updates.

As a recap, here's what led up to my last post on the subject on the nineteenth of March. From the time of my original entry introducing the photo album back at the end of December, I had posted the day-by-day journal of my suppositions about just who might have created the album and who the pictured family members might have been. My goal had been to determine the full identity of those included in the album, and then, using that information, to try and return the album to a living descendant of the family.

Since I had started out with only the first names of a handful of players, plus some other vague hints, it took me almost daily postings to talk through the problem. This went on from the beginning of January through the third week of February. By that point, with no further clues—or nibbles from any members of the mystery family, themselves—I decided to set the project aside.

If you know me, you know that had to be a difficult decision. I so wanted to see that project through to the end. I wasn't going to be satisfied until I could send that little photo album home to Ireland, to the family of the couple who originated it.

Of course, I couldn't even stand to abide my own decision. With Saint Patrick's Day coming up, my mind wandered back to that Irish album, and I decided to give the quest one more attempt. Only this time, I tried a different approach: crowdsource the solution.

I sent out a request for Facebook friends and Twitter followers to pass the word along, linking back to a post I wrote explaining this one last plea. Two days later, I already had a suggestion for a possible contact—someone who was likely a direct descendant of the couple who created the album. The very next day, after sending a message to that person online, I received confirmation that that was the right connection.

Since that time, we've exchanged a lot of emails. The real treat, though, was getting to talk with this descendant over the phone. Both of us are now working to piece together a fuller picture of the family tree. And that question of just how the album from the Reid family of County Cork, Ireland, showed up in California is a puzzle we are better suited to unravel as we work on this together.

Best yet is this descendant's willingness to share more of the Hawkes and Reid families' story, including some marvelous photographs. She's granted me permission to share with you some of the details from our conversations, and we'll begin with that in tomorrow's post.

I am still in awe over how modern social media, as well as online research capabilities, have facilitated allowing two total strangers to connect. In the past, this might have been as likely as finding a message in a cast-off bottle—and then being able to trace the message back to its originator. While the exercise, despite its twenty-first-century boost, is still not what you could call effortless, it is vastly more possible with today's connectivity than ever before.

Above: "Lost on the Grand Banks," 1885 oil on canvas by American landscape artist Winslow Homer; courtesy Wikipedia; in the public domain.