Not Sure What to Believe

 

Sometimes, in pursuing information on our brick wall ancestor, we can end up with too much information. That may be the case with my second great-grandfather Alexander Boothe. I've pulled up so many records that I've hit the spot where I'm not sure which document to believe.

Last week, it seemed a fortunate moment to locate the widow's application for pension filled out by Alexander's wife, Rachel Riley Boothe. From the several pages of that application, I saw she claimed Alexander's date of birth was February 14 of 1816. That date seemed to fit reasonably well with other records where I had found Alex mentioned.

This week, however, tells a different story. And I'm not sure which one to believe. On the one hand, last week's discovery came supposedly from the mouth of Alexander's own wife. This week I've found his own appeal for disability benefits as a soldier serving in the Civil War—which, incidentally, was rejected. Guess what: the man gave his own date of birth as a quite different answer: July of 1828.

Now, wait a minute here. We already know from previously-found documents that Alexander had a son who was born about 1838. Of course, there can be mistakes on headstones, too, my main source of his year of birth. But if Alexander were really born in 1828, then his oldest child wouldn't have been born ten years later.

That also colors the other details I've found on Alexander a suspected shade of gray. It's almost as if the statements he made were not believable. How do you search for someone like that?

On the other hand, thinking of him as an unreliable witness to his own life story doesn't serve us well, for when we review some of the many tax records I've found for someone by that same name in Nansemond County, Virginia, by 1839, he was claiming to have been over sixteen years of age. Even embedded in his own pension application was a statement vouching for Alexander's reliability and good standing in his community, signed by several of his Tennessee neighbors, including a mayor, a former mayor, and a bank president.

One other detail gleaned from Alexander's pension application was his statement that he had lived in Tennessee for fifty two years. Since the application was drawn up in October of 1893, that would yield us an arrival date in that state around 1841. We already have spotted the household of one Alexander Boothe in Nansemond County, Virginia, in the 1840 census. Possibly he left his home town shortly after that point and headed for Tennessee. In that case, it makes more credible his second son David's claim that he was born in Tennessee, not Virginia.

While reading Alexander's statements in his pension application was an interesting—though conflicting—exercise, it didn't point me in any solid direction. (It did, however, yield me a possible sample of his signature.) It's time to head back to Virginia and experiment with the names of all the other Boothe residents of that county, to see whether any of them would be of an age to claim a son of Alexander's generation.

Perfectly Clear — and Inscrutable

 

How can handwriting be so perfectly clear, and yet not communicate the information we need? That's what had me stuck last week as I puzzled over Rachel Riley Boothe's application for a widow's pension.

Granted, there were some rough spots in the several pages of her application, like the place recording her answer about her husband Alexander Boothe's place of birth. Nancyman? Perhaps that meant Nansemond, a county in Virginia at the time of her 1906 application.

But when it came to a series of questions about her own background, I was both excited to glean more information and equally stymied by the content of her response. The official completing the form used the clearest handwriting for question number three: "When and where were you born and what was your maiden name?" And yet, for the answer about her place of birth, I am at a loss to find the designated location.

While it is obvious that the answer was entered piecemeal, as each section of the information was added. The handwriting for the date of birth and Rachel's maiden name, for instance, seems different—more compressed and smaller than the handwriting that provided the beginning of the answer.

For one thing, while the state name seemed to be misspelled, it is obvious that the answer was South Carolina. However, in retrospect now that we have the resources to view each decennial census, I can't say I am confident of even that answer. For one thing, the earlier census records—1850 and 1860—reported Rachel's place of birth as North Carolina. While anyone's guess is good for the enigmatic entry in the 1870 census, the answer "South Carolina" didn't appear until the 1880 census.

Perhaps it was Alexander himself who provided the answer about his wife's place of birth for those earliest records. An answer like North Carolina would make sense for those living in the northeastern edge of Tennessee, where North Carolina was just over the mountain range. But with the answer Rachel provided on her pension application leading me to a dead end, I wondered whether perhaps even she had gotten the two states mixed up.

The handwriting was so clear on her answer. I enlarged the copy to make sure I was seeing it correctly, though I already knew what I was seeing.

The trouble was, there was no such county by that name in either South Carolina or North Carolina. Remembering that Virginia had some "extinct" counties—after all, that's the case with Alexander's own place of birth, Nansemond County in Virginia—I tried looking for historic names. Remembering "Nancyman," I tried imagining how a county's name might have been spelled phonetically. Still, no clue as to what she meant by her answer. Tobarrass County? Lobarrass? Fobarrass?

Over the weekend, I chatted back and forth with fellow blogger, Charles Purvis of Carolina Family Roots, who offered to help figure out the South Carolina location. Charlie has been experimenting with Artificial Intelligence, and offered to run a few questions through two different systems: Perplexity.AI and ChatGPT.

Based on input regarding the possibility of phonetic spelling coupled with variances in regional accents plus challenges with literacy levels, Perplexity read the entry as "Starrass" and offered a possible answer of Starr, South Carolina. ChatGPT, taking a different approach, noted that the optical character recognition result was distorted but managed to read the entry as "Spartansburg," which obviously would refer to present-day county of Spartanburg.

While further input and refinements would make AI assistance more helpful—not to mention, it's likely a tool which we all could develop skill in using—I can't help but go back to the original document and stare at that crystal clear handwriting, just wondering what the clerk meant when his impeccable handwriting penned that entry. 

Considering "Nancyman" County

 

Brick wall ancestors demand a relentless push to find additional records in the hope that perhaps finding just one more, we'll receive our answer. So it's been with searching for the roots of my second great-grandfather Alexander Boothe.

Late last week, I found a document which possibly confirmed Alexander's birth in Nansemond County, Virginia—well, almost. The document actually reported that Alexander Boothe was born in "Nancyman" County, Virginia, on February 14, 1816.

That document was my wakeup call to be creative and patient with handwritten records drawn up during oral interviews. In this case, the interview was with Alexander's second wife, Rachel Riley, in her 1906 plea to receive a pension as an indigent widow on account of her husband's service during the Civil War.

According to the government record of that interview, Alexander Booth served in Captain Hugh McClung's Tennessee Light Artillery company. (Apparently, not only Alexander served, but his son David may have, also.) His service, however, was cut short—"something over one year"—due to development of a disability, according to his wife Rachel's statement in the pension application.

From the time of his discharge, Alexander apparently remained home, and died in Johnson City, possibly going there for medical assistance, as that was not his place of residence. As to when he died, the pension application, although providing space to record that information, lacked any response marking in the date. That Alexander Boothe had died before Rachel's 1906 application is assumed—and at any rate, is more than certain by this date, though his humble grave marker simply indicated his name—"Alex Boothe"—and the initials C.S.A. to designated on which side he chose to serve.

Besides such missing answers in the pension application, there were other details which I hadn't before known about the Boothe family. From each little clue harvested from a newfound document, we take tiny steps forward toward discovering more about our brick wall ancestors. This application gives me a few more points we need to consider for this month's research goal.

William Tilson in Virginia: When and Where?

 

We've found a claim that William Tilson, despite already having been given land in Massachusetts, had settled in Virginia by 1763. That claim, as we've seen, may have run contradictory to the rules and regulations of the colonial jurisdiction in which he lived. With so many snippets of history hinting that the Tilson claim couldn't have been possible, are there any other signs to counterbalance that assertion gone awry?

I poked around the Internet, thanks to a little guidance from Google, to see if I could find further information. From a newspaper article introducing a reference book on land grants after the French and Indian War—Bounty and Donation Land Grants in British Colonial America, written by Lloyd DeWitt Bockstruck—I learned a few key details.

One was that the king of England had authorized colonial governors to issue grants for bounty lands to those participating in the French and Indian War, with the amount of the land awarded based on the rank of the person serving. While the Proclamation of 1763 limited governors as to the location of land granted, there was none so limited as the governor of Massachusetts Colony; in Massachusetts, there was no land available to be awarded within their own borders.

In order to receive such an award, an eligible person needed first to apply. The resultant paperwork thus could reveal to a researcher not only that an ancestor received such a grant, but what rank was held by that ancestor, which colony he served for, which military engagements he was part of, and the size and location of the land he received.

Presumably, the paperwork would also provide us with some dates. After all, I'm trying to ascertain whether the William Tilson who lived in southwest Virginia was one and the same as the grandson mentioned in the Massachusetts will of John Murdock. And I've found some roadblocks to a clear understanding and confidence that the William in Massachusetts would be one and the same as the William in Virginia.

We already can see from the 1810 census that there was indeed a William Tilson living in Washington County, Virginia. In fact, the names surrounding his entry on that enumeration point to possible family members and other associates: Sampson Cole, likely namesake of William's grandson born that very year; "Hellin Dungans" and Levi Bishop, mentioned as grantees in the 1797 land record we've already examined; and probable sons Thomas and "Lamuel" Tilson. Despite any squabbles over transcription problems in the 1797 land record, other tax records showed that someone named William Tilson was already paying taxes in Washington County, Virginia, by that date.

 

But when we rewind history to those more messy years, I don't find any land records. What I do find, again from history records, is another warning in the guise of the 1768 Treaty of Fort Stanwix. That agreement sought to revise the colonial boundary line previously established in the 1763 Royal Proclamation. With the later treaty, some of the land previously excluded from colonial settlement was now open for claims to the bounty lands promised after the war. So, could William Tilson have settled in southwest Virginia by 1768?

Complicating matters was that the process for obtaining the requisite certificate showing proof of military service was apparently bogged down in its own red tape. Some certificates were issued by 1774—at least, those in Virginia—but some were not provided until issued by Virginia county courts in 1779 or later.

Granted, the push to revise the former treaty was a slow and messy process. In addition, history already indicates that some land speculators as well as settlers already had exercised their claim to land which was subsequently impacted by the Royal Proclamation.

Could William Tilson have been among such settlers? Hard to say, at this point. But whether he barged right in and took up residence at the first chance in 1763, waited until 1768—or even later—we do have another chance to track William's whereabouts and family connections: his service in the Revolutionary War. We'll examine what can be found of that subsequent military service next week.

 

Image above: Excerpt from Personal Property Tax Lists of Washington County, Virginia, 1782-1850, for 1797 entry for William Tilson; digitized image courtesy FamilySearch.org.  

 

Before the Mission

 

It is always exciting to stumble upon personal details of an ancestor's life which reveal closeness to action confirmed by reports of world history. Discovering that my godmother's father Michael Melnitchenko, chief officer of the S.S. Richard Olney in 1943, endured a harrowing brush with wartime destruction aboard ship, makes me want to discover more about that experience. I want to know what brought him to that fateful moment, and what the plan had been, had the mission gone as planned.

Before we can discuss details of the mission of the Liberty Ship S.S. Richard Olney, though, we need to realize many other plans needed to fall into place—and to do so in a systematic sequence. Here are those many preparatory steps.

The Liberty Ship S.S. Richard Olney was launched January 22, 1943. Sometime before the end of March, 1943, when Captain Erich Richter took charge of the ship, the Richard Olney was berthed in New York harbor, having recently arrived there from Santiago, Cuba. At that point, Michael Melnitchenko was not among those listed as crew members, and I am not able to locate any record of his having been added at that early date.

However, by the time of the ship's crisis on September 22, 1943, Michael was serving as chief officer, according to his written report of the morning's incident. The S.S. Richard Olney was part of a convoy in the Mediterranean, headed to Salerno in the wake of the Allies' invasion of Italy.

Every step along the way to that destination required several other steps to have been successfully cleared out of the way, before the Richard Olney could even begin to enter the Mediterranean Sea. 

Awaiting the right moment to begin their own mission, in September 1943, the Richard Olney had been berthed at the port of Oran in present-day Algeria—but shortly before that, at the start of the second World War, that wouldn't have been possible. 

For one thing, the Mediterranean had effectively been closed to merchant marine traffic since 1941, due to Axis control of the area. In addition, Algeria had been part of French North Africa. But early in the war, France had fallen to the Germans, which impacted the French territories of northern Africa as well, effectively closing off Allied access to the Mediterranean. Operation Torch began clearing those formerly French holdings from the Axis powers, enabling the Allies access to key African ports, including the Algerian port of Oran and ports in nearby Tunisia, including Bizerte, in May of 1943.

That, in turn, cleared the way for Allied forces to mount an attack of nearby Sicily in July from those north African ports, further securing Allied access to Mediterranean waters, and especially paving the way for invasion of Italy. That final operation was what brought the crew of the S.S. Richard Olney to land there in Oran, preparing for and awaiting further orders in September, 1943.

Above map: the plan for the September 1943 Allied invasion of Italy at Salerno, following which the S.S. Richard Olney was to join a second convoy from Oran; colorized version of map courtesy Wikipedia from original government document; in the public domain.

  

Bells Across the Globe

On the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, one hundred years ago, bells rang around the world, announcing the end of what was, to that point, undoubtedly the most deadly war ever fought. Today, they ring again.

The bells will ring in England. Across Canada. In Chicago and other American cities. Memorials monumental and minimal will mark the centenary of the Armistice of the Great War. Sixty two thousand poppies at the Australian War Memorial will commemorate those from Australia who lost their lives—one handcrafted poppy for each life lost. Scotland will take seven hours to project the 134,712 names of their fallen—at ten seconds for each entry—onto the face of their parliament building beginning at 5:00 p.m. tonight. And in a graveyard in Gloucestershire, England, the apparition of eleven fallen soldiers, created by wire sculptor Jackie Lantelli, commemorates those local men who died in World War I.

"Lest we forget" may have been adopted, across the English-speaking world, as a reminder of the horrors of this war, but one hundred years out, there are none left who were actual eyewitnesses of that horrible time. While many of us have close relatives who fought in later wars, there are none left from the first World War to commemorate this day.

We can, however, preserve the remembrances of those we knew from our own families who did serve at that time. Their eyewitness stories, preserved in letters, journals, and perhaps even photographs, are now our only way to feel as if we are touching that moment that reshaped history so drastically. May the somber recognition of the day's significance, one hundred years ago, be inspiration of a start in our own research to delve into such aspects of our own ancestors' stories from that desperate era.

More About Tarance

One of the challenges of returning antique photographs to family members is to correctly trace the lines of descent for the specific individuals identified in the pictures. That involves building a family tree for the subject, then following that family down to the present time.

In the case of the baby Tarance Fuller, whose picture we viewed on Wednesday, attempting to follow his history caused me to stumble upon some unexpected details.

One of the first places I visit, when researching such families, is Find A Grave. The reason for this is simple: anyone showing up in a hundred year old picture is likely no longer with us—even a baby. Find A Grave is a quick way to locate those who are likely to be found in such a condition. The drawback is that it is a volunteer effort by many kind people, some of whom can make mistakes. I am wondering if what I found on some of the Fuller and Purkey records contain such errors.

We've already learned that Tarance was the son of John and Pleasant Purkey Fuller. We met his sister—listed in various records with either the name Theresa or Tressa—in the photograph I shared yesterday. Along with Tarance and Theresa, the Fullers had another son, whom they named Harold.

The first problem I spotted in the Fuller records at Find A Grave was in the memorial for Tarance's mother Pleasant. Someone had provided a statement indicating her parents were Jacob and Helen Fuller. Well, of course that was wrong—we've already discussed her spot in the family of Jacob and Mary Ellen Kincade Purkey. Just that one error reminded me to step carefully in working through this family tree.

But when it came to finding the memorial for Pleasant's son, Tarance Fuller, I noticed that his rather plain grave marker, similar to his mother's, did not appear to be the military marker he likely was entitled to have received. While he was much too old to have been drafted for World War II, Tarance, as I had discovered through an application for headstone made on his behalf, had enlisted in the army shortly before the end of the first World War, and received an honorable discharge as a corporal in January of 1918.

The headstone he was to have received, incidentally, would have been a flat granite marker. If the marker shown in the photograph accompanying Tarance's Find A Grave memorial was indeed granite, however, it was in terrible disrepair. Bad enough to have the volunteer read his rank as private rather than corporal.

A few clues might lead us to understand why the grave site looked so neglected. I noticed, on Tarance's World War II registration, that he listed, for closest relative to contact, his sister "May"—the one whom we now know as Theresa Fuller Hanson of Spooner, Wisconsin, the mother in the photo we saw yesterday. At fifty five years of age, Tarance provided no name of any wife or children to enter in that slot for contact information of closest relative.

And at the point of ordering Tarance's headstone, the relative who signed for the request was someone named Laverna M. Fuller Jaquith. It didn't take too much sleuthing to discover Laverna's identity. Remember Tarance's younger brother Harold? One of his daughters was named Laverna—and she eventually married Harold Kenneth Jaquith. Two days after Tarance's death in 1953, the closest family he had to attend to his affairs was not a wife or a child, but a daughter of his younger brother.

Sometimes, when I find the family to which rightfully belongs a photograph I've rescued, it is a happy reunion of the family memento with descendants—particularly if it is a person who, like the rest of us, cares deeply about family history.

Other times—and I'm afraid this instance of Tarance's photograph will find itself in this situation—there is really no one left to send the photograph to.  

Those Gems We've Tucked Away

It was while on a mission to find something else that my husband uncovered a photo he had long been missing. He remembered it clearly enough, but the part that wasn't so clear was its exact location. Thankfully, not only was the item found, but now scanned, labeled, stored and shared. Since it's a weekend—and my time, traditionally, to wander from my weekday topics—I thought I'd share this unusual piece of family history with you.

Those who have been following A Family Tapestry for a few years may remember the story I told of my father-in-law, Frank Stevens. From the point at which the Pearl Harbor bombing galvanized so many young men and women to action and service in our country's military, I took Frank's story from his early years in Chicago when, at age seventeen, he enlisted in the Navy, all the way through his military career to the point at which, by then retired from the Air Force in the mid-1960s, he tragically lost his life in a vehicle collision.

During part of his years of service—by this time, in the Air Force—he and his family lived on Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico. The family estimates the time of the photo (below) was some time between 1957 and 1963. It's a photo of Frank preparing to ride what the family called "the G sled"—a device utilized at the Holloman High Speed Test Track.

The only trouble with that estimate—well, if you can trust the Wikipedia write-up on the topic—is that the last of the volunteer human test subjects to ride the sled was in December, 1954. That, likely, was on December 10, when the director, Col. John P. Stapp, achieved 632 miles per hour, the highest known acceleration voluntarily encountered by a human test subject.

No matter when, exactly, Frank Stevens rode the G sled at Holloman AFB, we certainly have a photo commemorating the event—our family's small part to help develop the U. S. space program.

Above: Frank Stevens at Holloman Air Force Base's High Speed Test Track, in harness with monitors attached, about to ride the G sled. Photograph in possession of author.



 

Day Eighteen: Finally! An Emptied Folder!

For as imposing a topic as the American civil war, you'd think it would take me much longer to dispatch with the folder I pulled out of my nemesis file cabinet today. Under "C" for Civil War, it was the item I was due to tackle today, and thinking of all that conflict meant to our nation's history, it should have given me more pause to consider.

Thankfully, it didn't. The only research question I've faced—at least on the Union side—was whether I could find any records of my husband's great grandfather, John Tully, having served. After all, according to a long-winded version of his obituary, the man had served under "General Hooker." I can only presume this means Brigadier General Joseph Hooker.

Despite that note in John Tully's obituary, I never could locate any record of his having served. The folder I encountered in today's installment of The Cleanup reminded me of my attempt, back in 2004, to locate anything at the National Archives. I had saved files containing instructions on how to research the matter, back at that time, and records of my having located a possible John Tully—and paying the fee to gain a copy of his record.

Even so, that attempt was short-circuited when a kind employee, in the process, mentioned to me that he thought I might not be ordering the file for the right John Tully. I recall—though there is, unfortunately, no record of the exchange in this file folder—that the employee mentioned this John Tully had moved, after the war, to North Dakota. Thinking, at the time, that my John Tully had returned to the family home—then in Chicago—that North Dakota wasn't in the picture for our family history.

Of course, it was only later that I learned John's sister Johanna had moved with her branch of the family to North Dakota, so there was a connection, no matter how slim. If only I had thought to continue with the process. After all, what's another thirty seven dollars?

Now, with subscriptions to Fold3 and other research resources, surely I could replicate those files—or at least some smattering of something that could verify the information contained in that email exchange. At least, that's what I thought, as I worked through that Civil War file. But some things just need to be snatched when they are first spotted; I haven't been able to find anything now.

In the end, most of the links provided in the articles saved in that folder are so outdated that I decided to toss the entire folder. Score one for "progress." I'm on to the Ds.

Above: Civil War, Picket Duty in Virginia; oil on panel by American artist Albert Bierstadt; courtesy Wikipedia; in the public domain.

Grinding Genealogical Research to a Halt

When observing the progress of genealogical research begins to take on the same aspect as watching the making of sausage, it may be time to move on to a more appetizing topic—at least one with the promise of a more interesting story line. Before that point, however, I will add one more post to outline some markers so I can find my way through this research maze again, once I can travel to a repository with useful material.

An idea occurred to me, while puzzling over my William Tilson, the young man who took a wife in colonial Massachusetts and thought it was a good idea to immediately forsake family and friends and move to the wilderness of southwest Virginia. That idea was that it might be useful to go about building an inventory of what could be found online, concerning colonial land grants subsequent to the French and Indian War but preceding the American war of independence.

A technique I've always found useful, at least for online searches on the usual genealogical websites, is to skip the front-door entryway where the dialog box asks for input of the name you're seeking. Instead, look for the map representing the countries of the holdings in that organization's repositories, and click through to the location in question.

In this case, since I'm researching land grants in colonial Virginia, I checked first to see whether these records would show under the entry for what is now the state of Virginia, or whether they'd be under the former governmental entity (which in that case would be Great Britain). For both Ancestry.com and FamilySearch.org, the two organizations where I looked, records were available for Virginia, the state, predating the American Revolution.

Looking at the online holdings at Ancestry.com for Virginia, I did see land and probate records predating 1776. The collections on their list, however, were small, and nothing showed up for my Tilson question.

Same for the Virginia records at FamilySearch, though the number of collections with any records predating 1776 was less than that at Ancestry.

Not to be deterred with this disappointing start to my survey, I moved on to the Wiki tab at FamilySearch, where I asked for any records involving land grants linked to the French and Indian War and the colony of Virginia. The wikis at FamilySearch can be a useful resource for those just learning how to research a specific genealogical topic—as I am here, wandering around the colonial wilderness in southwest Virginia, far from those research topics of warm-fuzzy familiarity—but some entries may be more thorough than others.

I checked the wiki on Virginia Land and Property, which provided some background information and several links to resources at Ancestry, plus a list of Family History Library microfilms. Since I'll be in Salt Lake City for the Institute of Genealogy next January, this will become part of my to-do list for research at the library then.

In a very substantial listing at the wiki for Virginia Military Records, I found a brief section on the specific time period involving my William Tilson. It mostly contains a bibliography, but even the few references listed there may come in handy, so I'll note them, as well.

Since I also need to get up to speed on what repositories there are for Virginia records, I also checked out the wikis on the Library of Virginia and the various other archives in Virginia. May as well know more about who the main players are in this research game.

Though I thought this should be my last post on the Tilsons in Virginia—at least, until I find something more substantial to report—it turns out I have one more observation to make. With that—which I'll save for tomorrow—we'll proceed to another aspect about my Virginia ancestors who moved on to brighter futures in 1800s Tennessee.

 

Above: Example of the FamilySearch.org search page after having highlighted the region on the map identified for further research. Inset labeled "Virginia" pops up, once the country (or region) has been clicked and the specific location selected. Then, clicking on "Start researching in Virginia" leads to first a list of the top few collections for that jurisdiction, then can expand to show all the holdings for that location.  

Not Too Early — But Not Too Late

Exploring the history of land grants in the British North American colony of Virginia has been an interesting side trip on my route to discover what prompted my Massachusetts ancestors to move to the wilderness surrounding the Holston River. I knew that my William Tilson had served in the French and Indian War before marrying his bride in 1762 and moving to southwestern Virginia. But it has taken a lot of digging to determine just how the land in the area might have gotten doled out to willing settlers.

One of the first land grants I found information on was issued in 1745. That year, of course, predates my Tilsons' arrival in the Virginia colony by a considerable amount. Still, to explore the mechanisms of how colonists obtained land in that era, I decided to follow the paper trail.

The 1745 grant was made by the Virginia governor and Council of State to a gentleman by the name of James Patton. His was not a modest receipt of property: the grant entailed a swath of land totaling one hundred thousand acres. The only stipulations, apparently, were that he could not select lands within the boundaries of claims of three other grantees: Lord Fairfax, Benjamin Borden and William Beverley.

In the ensuing years, there has been much interest in the land grants of that same James Patton. Records of a subsequent—1749—land grant he received are housed at the Library of Virginia. An interesting assessment of the longstanding—and possibly suspect—business dealings of James Patton and William Beverley has been offered in the bulletin of a local historical society.

James Patton was not the only one surveying large grants of land received from the Virginia government. Just a few years later, another explorer, Thomas Walker, joined with several others to form a company which received land grants, as well. That company was known as the Loyal Company, and among its founders were men with surnames which make up part of my own heritage: Gilmer, Harvie, Lewis and Meriwether.

Those land grants—of 1745 and 1748—were too early to include my Tilsons' arrival in southwestern Virginia, of course. But in looking at a meandering report I've mentioned previously, an online reprint from a 1937 issue of the William and Mary Quarterly, I noticed author Ralph M. Brown observed,

From the conclusion of the French and Indian War in 1764, until 1768, nothing of importance occurred in Southwest Virginia beyond the visits of the Long Hunters and the surveyors for the land companies, few settlements being made.

And,

The great influx of settlers into Southwestern Virginia and Kentucky did not begin until after 1794.

While 1745 was too early a process to include my Tilson settlers in the area, that date of 1794 for a "great influx" of settlers was definitely too late. I needed to find something in the middle to help me understand just what it was that inspired a newlywed William Tilson to opt to leave home and extended family to set up housekeeping with his bride in the wilderness of southwest Virginia.

Fortunately, other "current events" of the time period pointed me to some possibilities. Part of the business woes of the Loyal Company involved fallout from the politics of the era. Once source mentioned "the crown rejected further extension of the grant" held by the Loyal Company as part of a ban on western settlement in 1763.

For those astute history buffs among us, that date of 1763 may have rung a bell—but not for me, unfortunately, as I had to slog through pages and pages before I even realized that date sounded familiar.

And it should have sounded familiar to me, if for nothing else than that William Tilson—who had served with the British in the French and Indian War—was by that year free to marry, to travel, and to relocate his residence, simply on account of the end of his military duties during war time. In other words, with the war now over, the obligatory treaty had to be drawn up. To the victors went the land of the defeated, so Britain now held claim to lands once under French control.

In addition to that, other agreements fell into place. Among them was the provision in the Royal Proclamation of 1763 forbidding all settlement west of a line drawn along the Appalachians. Bottom line: that suddenly rendered void any land grants which had been given by the British government to those American colonists who had fought in the war.

This opens up two additional points to pursue. One: that there were land grants issued by the Crown to colonists for military service before 1763. Second, if that were so, and if that was what instigated the Tilsons' move to Virginia, how was it that he remained there on that now-not-legally-granted property? For William and Mary Tilson remained in southwest Virginia at least through the dates of birth of the seven children I've been able to locate—a stretch of time from 1763 through 1776, and possibly much longer.

Every time I've pried open the answer to one question, all that pops out is yet another question.     

 

Great Friends

When the oldest son of Lewis James Daugherty and Nora Flowers was born, it was right in the middle of the year 1900. By the time young Arthur James Daugherty was old enough to register for the draft, it was one day shy of two months before the German signing of the Armistice. It is doubtful that Lewis and Nora ever had to face seeing their son leave home to serve his country in war time.

Nor did they ever endure the same for their second son, Arthur's younger brother Marion, who trailed him by two years. Yet the two Perry County boys, who shared so many interests and experiences together, also shared a friendship with another local boy who did serve in what was then known as the Great War.

Burley Russell Chaney, born May 9, 1897, in nearby Coshocton County, was just the right number of years older than the two Daugherty boys to be part of the United States armed forces to serve in that war to end all wars. He enlisted only a week before Arthur had registered, and almost immediately received his honorable discharge on December 20 of that same year.

Arthur's brother Marion had been the first to meet B. R. Chaney, most likely on account of the three young men's mutual interest in mechanics and employment in local garages. When Arthur had begun discussing his dreams of working in the emerging field of aircraft, Marion knew just the person to whom he should introduce his aspiring aviator brother.

The year was, by then, 1921, and the Daugherty boys were off, having left their Ohio home to seek work in various garages in Florida. Chaney, after his service at the end of the war, had returned home to Coshocton, married, and signed on with the city's police force as their first traffic officer.

By the time the idea had fully formed, it was 1925. Marion had contacted Burley Chaney and the three had agreed that the Daugherty brothers would return to Ohio and meet Burley in Zanesville, "and from there go on to California." As Marion explained,

Chaney, I think, had some interest in a commercial aviation field near Los Angeles and I know for sure he was in the government service during the World war.

Sharing a mutual interest in "airships," Arthur and Burley, upon meeting, became "great friends." The three friends stuck to their plan and headed to southern California. When they arrived, Burley arranged to give Arthur the coveted job at the air field and, as we've since discovered, a chance at learning how to fly.

As for Arthur's brother, it's unclear whether he had planned to stay all along but then changed his mind, or had planned on tagging along just for the journey, itself. When Marion Daugherty concluded, in the May 2, 1927, recounting in The Zanesville Signal of how it all started, his was an explanation of "the circumstances which led his brother to engage in aviation and his ultimate separation from family ties."

When Chaney gave Arthur the job he was hoping for, his younger brother's plain explanation of what happened next was simply, "I came back on July 5, but Arthur stayed on."

  

Off the Shelf: Letters From Walter

Several months ago, I decided I would explore the books out there, written by family historians seeking to share what they've found in their research. I purchased several examples, and even posted reviews on some of them in past "Off the Shelf" posts.

Then, life happened, and I detoured, following the ever-shiny new book to read. Granted, some of those books were worthy reads. Or at least kept me occupied on cross-country flights. Each one served a purpose—usually tying in with whatever project currently consumed me.

It's time now, however, to migrate back to that original intent: to explore the books fitting in the category of the kind of book I can see myself writing, based on my own genealogical explorations.

Since one of those books aligns nicely with all the World War II letters home which I transcribed five years ago from my father in law in the Pacific arena, I thought I'd grab this particular book—finally!—for this month's read. Not to mention, since this is May, and we are headed towards Memorial Day, it's a timely selection, despite its publication date over four years ago.

The slim volume I slipped off my shelf and into my travel bag for this month is Doug Eaton's tribute to American military veterans for "the service and sacrifice our veterans endured in order that we may enjoy all of our freedoms." When I was originally in pursuit of examples of how others had written up a family history—or personal experience during times of significant military history—someone had recommended this book to me.

The book is called, simply, Letters From Walter. A story of one serviceman and his family, the narrative is built around a collection of letters sent to an aunt and uncle in Indiana by Walter Hawes, assigned by the U.S. Army to Italy and northern Africa during World War II.

Around the core of those letters, author Doug Eaton relied upon the input of family members to create a biographical sketch of the subject, Walter Hawes, including that of Wilma Hawes Connely, Walter's sister.

While I'm interested in the letters, of course, I'm also taking a long look at the text to examine how others go about handling the blending of letters home with the memories of the family members who received them. I've tried to select an assortment of treatments—from simple to complex, brief to extensive—as I attempt to inform myself about what works and what doesn't, in the writing of family history.

Before reaching any conclusions, I suppose it would be helpful to survey the reading public about which formats worked best, in their opinion, and why. While I certainly don't have the resources of any slick marketing firms to access a wide and random sampling, I do have friends and fellow readers—like you, of course—who could provide input. Have you read any family history examples of letters home from the war front? Do you have any to recommend? If so, why?

 

Finding a Way Up North

Sometimes, we can't possibly find documentation to justify our theories about family history details. In such cases, we sometimes must satisfy ourselves with noting our recollections and hoping for the best that those stories are made as accurate as possible.

How can you document the journey made by a parcel sent in the mail? In the case of the mystery photo album I found in a northern California antique shop, all I know is that I found the thing in Lodi, California. How it got there is a tale sans documentation.

We do, however, have a family member's memories. We've met Rita, a niece of the couple—Harry and Alice Reid—who sent this photo album from Cork, Ireland, as a Christmas greeting in 1936.

When I questioned Rita about her hypothesis concerning the route taken by this photo album to arrive in northern California, she was quite certain about a few things. For one, as a young girl living in the family home in Buffalo, New York, she had taken to exchanging letters with her aunt and uncle in Ireland. Because of the family's connection—Harry's brother Richard was Rita's father—Rita was also sure that hers would have been the family most likely to have received the holiday gift from Ireland.

However, the 1936 album—if it was sent to Richard Reid and family—would have been addressed to their home in Buffalo, New York. Granted, the family later moved from Buffalo to California, but they moved to southern California, not the northern portion of the state. That is a difference of hundreds of miles.

As she had mentioned to me, Rita herself left California after the war—that being the second World War. She is fairly certain the photo album would have remained with her mom at their home in San Bernardino, California.

But then, her mom eventually left California, herself, moving to Arizona. Because the by-then deceased Richard Reid had only one son, Rita feels it is likely that her mother had left the album with her father's namesake. And that is where we need to pick up the chase, even though this post-1940 time period leaves us without the usual genealogical documentation we are accustomed to relying upon in our ancestor searches.

While I can't be quite sure, it seems this younger bearer of the Reid surname may have been a military man. I was able to find a transcription of a World War II enlistment record for someone by the same name, with same year of birth as our Richard. A promising detail: the place of birth indicated on the enlistment record happens to align with the blip of time the Reid family had moved from New York to Michigan—could that mean this was our Richard Reid? Additional details included the fact that, at the time of his enlistment, this man lived in the same county in California as our Reid family.

Interestingly, a person who seems to be this same man—the brother Rita thinks may have received the album—later surfaced at a residence in a place called Contra Costa County.

When you learn the meaning of the county's designation—basically, in Spanish, the name means "opposite coast"—you realize its northern California location on the other side of the San Francisco Bay puts it quite reasonably within a range to reach its final stop in a long journey at that antique store in Lodi. This county is so close to that Lodi location that its most prominent landmark—a set of peaks known as Mount Diablo—is clearly visible from the western edges of the city of Lodi.

While I can't yet determine whether Richard, the son, was ever married or had children of his own, I do know he passed away in that northern California county. However, he died in 1985, making it doubtful that a subsequent estate sale would have been the impetus putting that photo album on sale in an antique store. It's my guess that there might have been a wife or other family member who then inherited his personal papers, and held on to all the memorabilia until that person eventually passed from the scene.

If that is indeed the route the Reid family's photo album took—from County Cork to Buffalo to Riverside and San Bernardino to Contra Costa County—there is one additional observation that occurred to me about the album's long journey. At the beginning of this series on the photo album, I mentioned I started this quest because I was inspired by a blogger who has made it her mission to rescue what she calls "orphan photographs."

That is only part of the story. What really happened was that, through our research efforts, I and another of her readers had helped her return a particular portrait to a descendant of that subject. In gratitude, that descendant had sent my blogging friend a gift to help support her purchase of even more photographs to reunite with family. She, in turn, decided to share that gift with her readers who had helped make that return possible—including me.

Thus, cash in hand, when I made my first foray into an antique shop in emulation of my mentor, I was spending money provided by a person who happened to live in Contra Costa County. The photographs I found to buy—the mystery album we've been discussing here—may have traveled all the way from Ireland to the very same county in California from which the funds later originated, provided by a total stranger, to make the purchase.
   

Another Brother's Story

The key thing to remember when researching large families is that any one of those siblings can hold the key to unlock the brick wall mystery keeping us from our answer. In the case of the mystery photo album I found in northern California—the one originating far from there, in County Cork, Ireland—we've discarded the possibilities from one side of the target family, and moved on to the other side of the family. In other words, rather than following possibilities from album creator Alice Hawkes' side of the family, we are now looking at her husband's side of the family.

Alice's husband, Harry Reid, also came from a family with many children. In fact, before Harry's parents were married, his father's first wife had also had several children before her untimely death.

We could follow a careful routine of obtaining all the details on each of the Reid children in turn, by date of birth, and examine each for possibility of a nexus with a California-bound descendant. Since we've already obtained a hint from Harry and Alice's granddaughter Heather, though, it would be more to the point to hold up that hypothesis for examination. And we've begun that process, with the phone call to Heather's mother's cousin, Rita, this past weekend.

Rita, as we've discovered, is a daughter of Harry Reid's next-oldest brother Richard. According to Rita, her father was born in Ireland—in County Cork, we can presume—but moved to Canada. In fact, it was quite easy to confirm Rita's report, now that genealogical documentation is handily available. In a quick visit to irishgenealogy.ie, I was able to pull up this record from the birth returns of the district of Bandon, showing Richard to be son of Henry and Elizabeth Wolfe Reid, born on May 7, 1887 at Grange.

There may need to be some reading between the historical lines for just how Richard ended up moving to Canada. However, once again, it was easy to locate an explanation of that fact, thanks this time to Ancestry.com. Dated April 5 of 1915, record of Richard's signature on a declaration when he signed up to serve in the Canadian Over-Seas Expeditionary Force may provide a key to how and why—or at least when—he moved from Ireland.

Apparently, this document represented the right Richard Reid—after all, this could be a name held by many, both in Ireland and in Canada—for it showed his application, indicating his place of birth in Grange Cottage on that very same May 7, 1887. He gave his next-of-kin to be Henry Reid, still living at that same address.

Indeed, Rita's father did serve in the first World War, and, according to Rita, he had been trapped in a trench at one point during his service. Fortunately, we have the vantage point of looking back through history to Richard's story, and can see that he survived his service and returned to Canada, where he can be found in the city of Toronto in the 1921 census.

That document includes the detail that Richard had immigrated to Canada in 1908. But that is not all we discover by locating that Canadian census record. By 1921, not only had Richard Reid survived the war, but he had returned to his new homeland and settled down with a wife. He was, by then, also the proud papa of a baby girl. That, however, begins a new chapter in his life, as well as a convenient moment to pause in our recounting of it—for with the next step, the family will find themselves moving once again.   

Like Father, Like Son

It seems reasonable, now that I'm in Florida researching the history of my McClellan ancestors, to not allow myself to get distracted by the one fact that my third great grandfather was a signer of the original state constitution, and miss out on checking into the stories of anyone else in the family. For instance, what would a son be like, who saw his father's involvement in the state militia and in the formative years of his region's government?

Though William Henry McClellan may not have followed in his father's footsteps to attain the position—no matter how briefly—as a representative in the Florida State government, he apparently ran in some local races. Living in the northern part of the state in a little town called Wellborn, he showed up in some archived records of state elections.

In November, 1876, for instance, William H. McClellan received nine votes for constable in Suwannee County. Apparently, that wasn't sufficient to qualify him for the position. But it did show he tried—at least he was in the race.

For the year 1896, he seemed to fare somewhat better. In the Florida Secretary of State's report for that year, William McClellan was listed as Justice of the Peace for District Nine, encompassing Wellborn.

In other accomplishments, at least according to his Find A Grave memorial, he was listed as a Captain, undoubtedly for his role in the Civil War. But if you were to look up the man's occupation in the census records, it merely reported his occupation as farmer.

I suspect there were a lot of farmers in that century's census records who followed suit—a life not reflected adequately by the government's official documents.

Piecing together these little scraps of hints yielded up by a Google search, I get a mosaic of what this man might have been like. In the shadow of his father yet trying to offer up skills of his own, he was possibly hampered by the smallness of the community in which he grew up.

On the other hand, reflecting on his situation, it does open my eyes to see possible reasons why his son—my great grandfather—might have left the tiny town he called home for better opportunities elsewhere. And it also clues me in to those late night political conversations my mother remembered falling asleep to, as a child, and the likely influences behind my great grandfather's decision to run for mayor in his own time—which he did, serving for one term in another small town called Fort Meade.

Part of what we are certainly can be attributed to what we received through our parents. Some of it will be thanks to what we learned in our formative years. Relying on assumptions like this might not be as foolproof as following the Genealogical Proof Standard, but they may shed some light on the types of people our ancestors once were.

Roots in a Revolution

When most Americans think of the Revolutionary War, they think of the date 1776. Thus, when a soldier designated by the Daughters of the American Revolution as a "patriot" died in service to his country in 1774, it seems somewhat contradictory.

Actually, that year of 1776 marked the date of the document we call the Declaration of Independence. The period of political turmoil in those particular British colonies in North America spanned the years 1765 through 1783. The outbreak of the war has been pegged to an event in the Massachusetts colony in 1775.

Thus, when Captain John Frogg, recently married and father of a young child, died as part of the Battle of Point Pleasant in 1774, he became—at least in the minds of some—an American Patriot. Though Point Pleasant is still commemorated locally as the first battle of the American Revolutionary War, historians generally consider it part of preceding action which they refer to as Lord Dunmore's War—a complex strategy played out in the British governor of Virginia's hope to divert Virginia colonists' attention away from the crisis unfolding then among colonists in Boston and toward the opportunities possible with western expansion.

The governor's strategy failed, both in battle with the Native confederacy they faced at Point Pleasant and in diverting the Virginia colonists' attention away from the brewing revolutionary forces against the Crown up north, causing controversy among historians in the next two centuries. In the process, though, his plan precipitated a battle which, on the side of the militia, cost the lives of seventy five men, including Captain John Frogg.

The young captain—not quite thirty years of age when he lost his life—had married Agnes Lewis, daughter of my sixth great grandparents Thomas and Jane Strother Lewis, in 1770. The young daughter of John and Agnes—they named her Elizabeth Strother Frogg—probably was too young to even remember her father after his death in 1774, being barely three years of age when he died.

It wasn't long before the widowed mother of Elizabeth Strother Frogg remarried—another military man—and Elizabeth was raised by her step-father, Colonel John Stuart. Eventually, Elizabeth herself married a military man—Major Isaac Estill of Monroe County (then in Virginia)—when she was not quite eighteen. With that 1788 event, the family history of this particular branch of the Strother-Lewis descendants began four generations which traced the Estill surname—still far before that senator's surname I wondered about, yet full of stories of their own family history.

Above: Photograph of a Virginia frontiersman on the Point Pleasant Battle monument in West Virginia; courtesy West Virginia Collection within the Carol M. Highsmith Archive, U.S. Library of Congress.

"Anything From a Jeep to a Lorry"

Miss Alice Hawkes sailed for Ireland to spend some time at Inniscara House, the Hawkes family estate.

Sometimes, despite all the hard work invested in a genealogical search, the conclusion reached turns out to be disappointing. In our case with this puzzle of the photo album found in an antique shop, we are struggling to determine the identity of the couple—Harry and Alice—who sent the album to an undisclosed recipient for a Christmas gift in 1936.

While we did find an Alice in the Hawkes family who seemed to fit the parameters for our mystery couple, it turns out she didn't marry anyone named Harry, thus ruling her out in our search.

However, in the process of doing so, I discovered so many interesting details of this woman's life that I can't simply set her aside and continue, laser-focused, to cut through every other possibility. We can at least take some time to recognize the unique contributions this Alice made during her moment in history.

Alice Hawkes—later to become Mrs. Edward H. Robinson, the woman we saw mentioned in two family obituaries, traveling back home to Corning, New York, from her current residence in Ontario—lived an active life from an early age until her premature death. Though faced with a seeming set-back during her return to the Hawkes family estate in Ireland in 1915, as soon as she could, she found a way to volunteer to serve during the first World War, a path leading her through posts in both Britain and France before her marriage to a British Army physician, with whom she eventually settled in Canada to raise her family.

Several newspapers, including this June 15, 1944 reprint in the Corning Leader from the Syracuse, New York, Post-Standard, have preserved her story.

     Pvt. Robinson was born in Corning. After the death of her parents, she went to Ireland to take charge of her properties there. When the first war broke out, she was en route to New York, but the ship turned back.
     She was all alone in Ireland, her friends in the Army were being wiped out swiftly in the early phase of the war. The first thing she did was to offer her large home in Inniscara for use as a hospital. Then she moved to London to volunteer for canteen work. The official opening of the canteen at the Liverpool station was attended by King George V—and despite the royal presence the coffee pot just wouldn't work.
     From the canteen she proceeded to France to work in the wounded and missing office in Boulogne under the British forces. Then when the United States entered the war, she became a nurses' auxiliary—similar to a nurses' aid now—in an American hospital near Paris.
     After the war she was married to a Canadian subject.

That "Canadian subject," as we've learned, was Edward Robinson. Together, Alice and Edward raised a son—Hawkes Robinson—and a daughter. It will be no surprise to learn that the daughter's name was also Alice.

The newspaper account, however, provided the explanation for the senior Alice's involvement in the first World War. This, as you've likely noticed, was a report published in 1944, in the midst of the second World War.

There is a reason for this. As much as one would expect the wife of a respected physician to enjoy her station in life, by the time of Canada's involvement in World War II, Alice Hawkes Robinson was ready to jump back into the action. She became a member of the transport division of the Canadian Women's Army Corps., where she was likely to be found driving "anything from a Jeep to a lorry."

By then, both her children were grown and concurrently serving in the war effort—notably her daughter Alice, who had enlisted in the women's division of the Royal Canadian Air Force.

Not long after the close of the war, an entry back home in the Corning newspaper pinpointed the next event in the family's timeline. Alice's husband passed away on March 8, 1948, while vacationing in Coral Gables, Florida. While a sad yet inevitable episode in any family's history, it certainly didn't come close to matching the next occurrence in the story of this Alice and her branch of the extended Hawkes family.  

How Marion Met Alice

Ephemera—memorabilia meant to last for only the moment—why do we find it so fascinating? How can these papers show us so much about the people who once kept them, especially considering the blip on the radar of Time they represent?

The draw to learn just who the unidentified faces in a discarded photograph might be is likely what first enticed me to purchase the family photo album I discovered in a local antique shop. And actually, we've done quite well in figuring out who a few of the players were. We've certainly pegged Penrose Hawkes of County Cork, Ireland, thanks to his mother's penchant for cute white show dogs. And really, if it weren't for the notes inscribed on each page of the album, it would have been impossible to learn any of the Hawkes family's story.

One question remains, though: just who was it who added those white-ink notes on the faded black pages of the album? The album's frontispiece clued us in to the names Harry and Alice, but no surnames. We can presume that somehow, Harry and Alice are related to the other Hawkes family members, but we haven't yet picked up any further details to lead us to an answer.

However, we are certainly sensitized to any mention of those two names. So, in discovering the obituary of Penrose's recent bride, the fact that, besides mention of her sole survivors—her husband and her mother—the lone other name included happening to be someone named Alice certainly caught my attention.

To learn more about just who this Alice Hawkes Robinson was, we need to turn to yet another Hawkes family obituary from 1944—this time, six months prior to Marion's passing.

The obituary I'm referring to filled an entire column on the tenth page of the Corning Leader on March 20, 1944. Under a photograph labeled "Art Glass Vice President" was the article on the sudden passing of a man named Townsend de Moleyns Hawkes.

It's a pity that, though the article mentioned the names of this Mr. Hawkes' parents, his father's given names happened to be the same as some other members of the extended Hawkes family. To complicate matters, the newspaper seems to have a penchant for lumping all cousins into the same class, labeling as "cousin" both the father and the son of another branch of the Hawkes family. By using that term so indiscriminately, it complicates our quest to determine just how the Alice we are seeking is actually related to our target, Penrose Hawkes.

Here's a brief synopsis of the obituary, though the full article can be viewed here for free, thanks to the site known as Old Fulton NY Post Cards. Apparently, Townsend de Moleyns Hawkes was born October 11, 1874, at Kilcrea House in County Cork. He left Ireland to emigrate to New York in 1891 where, as the newspaper put it, "he quickly became associated with his cousin, Thomas G. Hawkes."

Almost in the same breath, the Leader went on to say, "He was also a cousin of Samuel Hawkes...the present president of the company." Samuel, as we've already noted, happened to be son, not brother, of the founder, Thomas G. Hawkes—so either Townsend and Thomas were cousins, or Townsend and Samuel. Especially considering this family tended to repeat use of the same given names from generation to generation, being able to peg their most recent common ancestor to one generation or the other would be quite helpful, as we'll soon see.

There were fine words to be said about Townsend Hawkes, of course. He was "an intensely friendly and democratic person" who held key positions in many civic-minded organizations. Though as important a person as vice president and secretary of a company manufacturing "some of the world's most beautiful art glass," he had just been out for a short walk with his dog when, resting afterward in a chair at home, he suffered a fatal heart attack.

Mr. Hawkes, at sixty nine, left behind a wife, two daughters and three grandchildren, in addition to his two brothers and two sisters.

And, of course, there were the "cousins." Samuel Hawkes, president of T. G. Hawkes at his father's passing, was listed as a cousin—but then, so was T. G., himself, a detail making this label nearly useless. Likewise, for that matter, for labeling Penrose as a cousin.

There was another "cousin" mentioned in this same enigmatic category: a woman by the name of Alice Hawkes Robinson—the same Alice we had seen mentioned in the then yet-to-happen obituary of Penrose's wife, Marion. In this earlier obituary, however, we have the luxury of learning more about this Alice than in Marion's meager column inch coverage.

For one thing, we learn the name of Alice's husband: Edward H. Robinson of Toronto, Canada. Whether we will learn that Edward's middle initial will reward us with the given name Harry is yet to be seen. But we can hope.

Of greater interest, at this point, is the detail that followed Alice's introduction:

A cousin, Mrs. Alice Hawkes Robinson, wife of Edward H. Robinson, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, was active during World War I as a nurse overseas and is now with the Canadian Women's Army Corps.

Here we find enough detail to discern the possible connection between Alice and Marion, the woman who, long after their possible World War I connection, was to become Penrose's wife. Whether or not this woman was the Alice of the mystery photo album, could it be that Alice was also the matchmaker who introduced her good friend Marion to the cousin who eventually married her?