Goin' Southern on Y'all

To be a genealogist means to always be learning. At least that's my opinion, and I've been chasing my family's history for almost my entire life. And still learning.

Ever do something, just as a special treat for yourself? This week is one of those special times for me. I'm spending the next five days in Salt Lake City, where the Utah Genealogical Association is hosting the annual Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy just a few blocks away from the largest genealogical library in the world.

I know, I know: some people pamper themselves with a day at the spa. A romantic weekend getaway. A trip to Hawaii. Me? I go to Salt Lake City in January.

Since the first hour of SLIG registration last summer—where I sat, poised at my computer with my trigger finger on my mouse, prepared to pounce on my class selection the minute registration opened—I've been preparing for this week's experience. I had heard great reviews of one particular SLIG instructor, years ago, from fellow blogger Michelle Taggart, and when I saw he was one of the 2019 speakers, my goal became to get into J. Mark Lowe's Advanced Southern Research class.

To prepare for this class, I knew I had to attend to my sorely-forsaken maternal grandmother's family tree, for it is her McClellan line—and related kin in Florida—on whom I'd like to focus for this week. For the past half year, that has been my primary research project, which will either sound like an impressive claim, or give you an idea of just how badly my attention was needed on this branch of the family tree. (Hint: go with the latter.)

Now that Monday, SLIG, and I have all coincidentally arrived at the same place, I'll not only hear from the well-recommended Mark Lowe, but also receive research guidance from Anne Gillespie Mitchell, familiar to many through her position as product manager at Ancestry.com and blogger at (and evangelist for) Cluster Genealogy. And since SLIG uses a team-teaching approach for many of their courses, I'll also get treated to instruction by Deborah Abbott and LaBrenda Garrett-Nelson, featured speaker at the plenary session this evening.

That is just the first of five glorious days of genealogical instruction—my week-long immersion in all things southern at SLIG 2019. 

Keeping Track of a New Year

It's the start of a new year, which means it's the start of a new tracking form for research progress. It may not seem like much, but I find great encouragement from a biweekly review of what I've accomplished, in pursuing this always-elusive "finished" (don't snicker) family history record. So, out come the old charts, amended with new dates. I'll start up a new year's worth of counting, just for personal encouragement, if nothing else.

The benchmarks for 2019, at least in my case, will be the starting numbers for this year. I'm still tracking four separate family trees—one for each of my daughter's four grandparents. For the first count of the year, I'm starting with 16,546 in my mother's tree, 15,941 in my mother-in-law's tree, 1,514 in my father-in-law's tree, and at the very bottom of the pile, my dad's tree at 516.

In the next twelve months, some of those numbers will grow by leaps and bounds—most likely the ones for which I have specific research goals to complete—and others will seem to sit still. The tree that has been growing the fastest, lately, is my mom's tree, and for a specific reason: I'm taking the Southern research class at the Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy this week, and my mother's sadly-neglected tree needed some serious attention. This, I'm happy to say, has been my research focus in preparation for this class ever since I signed up at the opening of registration last summer.

The second-fastest growth was in my mother-in-law's tree—well, at least until I put the brakes on in mid-summer. Since then, the only additions have been when I spotted an obituary for a distant cousin and added in all the updated names while the record was on hand. Other than that, my only other reason to add any entries was if I ran across a good DNA match—meaning one who actually responded to emails, or at least had a tree publicly posted where I also have a subscription. Can't pass an opportunity like that to update records.

I'm not sure yet what my next research goal will be. At the close of this week's class at SLIG, I'll have a ten day break to recuperate from all this learnin'...and then I'll be heading to Florida, home of my maternal grandmother's roots. That should be rich soil for digging up records. At least, that is what I hope. If all goes well, my research goals in the beginning of 2019 will not be much different than they have been for the past six months. Sometimes the flip of a calendar page doesn't do much to usher in a new research protocol.

On the other hand, I'll wait until I get through these next few weeks before I reassess my research plans. Sometimes, it is refreshing to just take a break from that laser-like focus on one research arena. Switching to Irish or Polish research might just be the break I'll need.

In the meantime, it's off to SLIG I go, for a week of listening, learning, trying new ideas, meeting new friends, and enjoying the challenge of mastering new ways to tackle a research problem.

Now Indexing — Or at Least Getting Back Into the Routine

The holiday season leaves me with the feeling that I haven't done any volunteer indexing work for aeons; certainly not the few weeks that it more accurately was. I feel as if I haven't done any indexing online for ever.

Perhaps, for everyone else, the exact opposite was the case, for when I went hunting for a candidate project to tackle, I found none of my usual go-to topics. I like to focus on record sets from the places where my ancestors once lived—in the desperate hope that I will somehow unearth the hidden record which will answer all my research questions.

This time? There was none of that. None, especially, of naturalization records for that New York port of entry which has been my prime target for entering ancestors.

Well, that was not entirely so. There was a quick batch of names of people entering New York, which essentially meant a potluck of a few cards, mostly illegible, which volunteers had probably given up on in the usual series. I'm afraid I've sent more than my fair share of these quick batches into the reject pile; the readability of some cards was nearing zero. I did, however, give it my best shot.

I'm looking forward to putting more effort into indexing projects in this new year, and hope there will soon be many fresh projects on the docket for eager indexers like me. The current offerings—at least for North American records—seemed quite slim, especially in the face of fresh volunteers still high on New Year's resolutions. Hope no one wastes this opportunity.

Finding a Friend at Find a Grave

It is never easy to foretell how complicated the path will be from rescued photograph to reunion with family members. Having a name and a location may seem to be the golden ticket, but as we've seen with Mr. and Mrs. Albert Roberts of Council Bluffs, Iowa, it hasn't helped much so far.

While digitized documents, easily accessible online from virtually everywhere, make the search infinitely easier than it ever has been in the past, there is only so much you can do, in the case of dual candidates for the same name. That's why, now that I've checked all the census records, vital records, and newspaper entries, it's time to move on to less typical resources.

One resource I've found helpful is to trawl through all the posted family trees I can find online. I look for direct descendants, of course, but I also keep an eye out for more photographs of the ancestors I'm seeking.

One such photo I ran across wasn't on Ancestry, though. I found it on Find A Grave. It was a photo of Mr. and Mrs. Charles Edwin Parkison. While it is unlikely that you've followed the minutiae on another person's family tree closely enough to recognize that Parkison name—actually, two Roberts descendants married someone by that surname—this particular Mrs. Parkison was the former Ruby Viola Roberts, also known as Ola.

Looking at the photo of Albert and Alice Roberts' daughter Ola, I wasn't sure she resembled either of the people in the photograph I had found, out here in northern California. But just in case I was mistaken in that first assessment, I decided to write the Find A Grave volunteer who had posted the portrait. My main reason for contacting her was to see if she had any other photographs—a picture of Ola's parents would be just what would do the trick—but I also asked her for permission to post the photograph of Ola and her husband here. That way, you can see what you think for yourself, so take a look below.

Of the few Find A Grave volunteers I've contacted, there has always been a prompt reply. Reaching out to connect with fellow researchers at Ancestry.com has not been quite as productive. Still, there are time—many times—when I need to connect with a direct descendant of the subjects of the photos I've found. All I can do is reach out and hope.

There is, for instance, a photo posted on Ancestry of what might be the father of the second candidate for our Albert Roberts. But since I haven't heard back from the researcher who originally posted the picture, I haven't received permission to post it here. You can, however, take a look at the original site, if you are a member of Ancestry.com. See if this picture resembles our Albert Roberts enough to peg him as Albert Marion Roberts, son of James Roberts.

Of course, I prefer any researcher who actually answers messages. This puts me in the odd position of hoping that the identity of the photo I found of Albert Roberts turns out to be the oldest of the three Alberts we've discussed so far. But I can't just conduct a thorough search based on such likeability factors. It's likely this search will find itself grinding on in the genealogical equivalent of sausage-making. And you know what I've said about that...

This Albert Roberts, whoever he is, will likely have to wait until those interminable behind-the-scenes searches finally draw to a conclusive end. Moving beyond any Roberts identities, as for what we'll be discussing next week, I have some travels planned.

Above: Photograph of Albert and Alice (Dooley) Roberts' daughter Ruby Viola Roberts and her husband, Charles Edwin Parkison of Riverton, Fremont County, Iowa; used by permission of Find a Grave volunteer and second great-granddaughter of Alice Roberts' brother, George Dooley. His family photo, also shared with us thanks to this same volunteer, is posted below, with Ola's Uncle George seated on right.

Doh!

I can't say how many times I've seen the list of photographers in one particular blog I follow daily. Do you think I'd remember that resource when struggling to identify when a specific studio was in operation? All together now: "Of course not!"

After all this time of working on the portrait of a "Mr. and Mrs. Albert Roberts" taken in Council Bluffs, Iowa, it finally occurred to me that I should seek out more details on the studio in which the picture was taken. Locating a sequential collection of city directories for Council Bluffs was not giving me the stretch of years I was seeking, so I turned to the local library's reference desk for answers.

In reply to my question, Ben Johnson, a Council Bluffs librarian, informed me that, according to the 1894-1895 city directory, a Mr. Charles H. Sherraddan and family were living at 625 Willow Avenue, but that the studio in question was called Riley & Sherraden. Mr. Sherraden apparently had a partner, C. A. Riley.

With that tip, I was off, searching for any details I could find on both Charles Sherraden and C. A. Riley. It wasn't long until I realized the partnership was not a long-lasting one. While some photographs in several different online collections contain labels with the two names together, there are several with just the Sherraden name, as was the picture I found of Mr. and Mrs. Albert Roberts.

Remembering that the blog I follow—The Cabinet Card Gallery—includes an index of posted topics, specifically kept by photographer's name, I scrolled through that blog's listing to see if either Charles Sherraden or his former partner, C. A. Riley, were listed.

Unfortunately, they were not. But that didn't keep me from searching for other such locations online. Just as I discovered for the many Facebook groups dedicated to rescuing abandoned photographs, there are several online resources sporting information on photographers of the earlier decades of the craft.

One such resource is the similarly-entitled Cabinet Card Photographers, where I found an entry for Charles Henry Sherraden, as well as a separate listing for his former partner, Clarence A. Riley.

The twin timelines published there served me well. For one thing, they allowed me to isolate the dates in which the photographs taken by Sherraden would likely be labeled specifically and only with his own name.

Those dates, however, are all across the board. Charles Sherraden, for instance, was listed as a photographer in Council Bluffs in the 1880 census, and likely operated his own studio up until his partnership with Clarence Riley in 1893. By 1895, though, Riley had opened a separate studio, and we can presume that Charles reverted to use of the Sherraden name for his studio following that date.

One item of particular note on the Sherraden timeline is his departure from Council Bluffs for Salt Lake City in 1900. In that year, he was listed both in the census for Council Bluffs in June, and in the city directory in Salt Lake City (though not as a photographer). From that point until his death in 1908, he remained in Utah.

During a span of business operation as lengthy as Sherraden's, his studio labels certainly changed a great deal. Examples of Sherraden studio labels can be found in a number of locations—Council Bluff's own library's collection, and in unexpected other places like the Snoqualmie Valley Historical Museum in North Bend, Washington. There, three samples, undated, of unidentified women, may come from different time periods in the Sherraden studio's history, with one, in particular, seeming to bear a similar label to the one in our Roberts portrait.

Still another resource led me to more photos taken at the Sherraden studio. Archives West, the Orbis Cascade Alliance, pointed to three Sherraden pictures in the Couch-Derickson Family photograph collection. The three of interest to us were dated from 1890 through 1898.

Now that I was on a roll finding bits and pieces of Sherraden work, how could I stop without checking out ArchiveGrid? Once again in this little here, little there story, I found a reference to a Sherraden photograph now held by the Sonoma County library, not far from me here in California. Though the photo itself bore a different logo design than the one in my possession, it was similar in layout—simply the surname on the left of the lower border, with the city listed on the lower right. Unfortunately, the archive had dated the photograph as having been taken anywhere from 1881 through 1900, not providing us any help in determining how to date our own mystery Sherraden portrait.

It may seem as if each detail is so small as to be insignificant, but collecting enough of these clues may lead us to an answer if we are persistent enough. We can't just rely on gathering the history of this one photographer, of course, but there may be other tidbits of information we can find, if we continue digging deeper with those local resources.

Creating a Personal Finding Aid for Local Research

One thing I learned from growing up at the far reaches of one of the world's largest cities is that cities have really neat historical resources. Like libraries. And museums.

It took me a little longer than my childhood years in the New York City metro to realize there were other repositories that come in handy for research, as well. Words like "archives" had to get added to my growing lexicon as my interest in family history expanded. The coming of digitized records seemed to flood me with additional resources, but sometimes blinded me to the possibility of finding tucked-away gems in real life.

Now that I'm living in a much smaller city—our town's population ranks us just above Saint Louis, Missouri, in size—it seems I've forgotten how much can be found locally to help with local research. In my own town, for instance, I've known about the private collection at the Haggin Museum, our local art and history museum, and, of course, the county's record collection at the county historical society's museum.

But how many other things do we know because they got lodged in our brain seemingly by osmosis? The drip-by-drip learning that comes with living in a community for decades is a type of learning we take so much for granted that we dismiss the value of it. And yet, it took me a visit to the bank our genealogical society uses for our financial business to get my memory jogged about their hundred and fifty year history, despite being aware for who knows how long that this bank has a phenomenal archive of local photographs and other memorabilia. I just didn't think to put two and two together.

There are several such research gems tucked away in our county—the kinds of places you just gotta know about. They aren't places with a world-class public relations program; in fact, they often operate on a shoe-string budget powered by true believers who provide the energy and determination to kick-start a noble mission. Sometimes, the only way people find out about such places is to stumble upon them.

Over the course of the years I've worked with my local genealogical society, for instance, I've been introduced to our city's chapter of the Filipino American National Historical Society, and the Chicano Research Center. I've learned about the history and heritage-preserving missions of several other local organizations, as well. That's what comes from living in the same community for so many years.

But let's suppose we need to learn about such tucked-away gems in another community. Say, what about researching in a place where we've never tried our genealogical hand before? Like Council Bluffs, Iowa, home of the Sherradan photography studio where the portrait of our mystery Mr. and Mrs. Albert Roberts was taken, well over one hundred years ago.

To proceed in searching for my answer on the identity of the right Albert Roberts, it would help if I knew more about the research resources tucked away in the Council Bluffs area. Of course, I can contact the local library's reference librarian, scope out the local genealogical society, determine whether there is a historical society with a photography archives—and all that, I have done.

But we can push beyond those usual first stops on the research circuit. I've had excellent success, in working on research projects in other regions, by just posting an inquiry on those old-fashioned online genealogy bulletin boards, where some kind soul has mentioned a local research gem not generally known by outsiders. I've also learned, once finding an answer, to also ask, at that location, where else I can find more stuff just like what I've just found. After evaluating all the tips myself and eliminating those which really didn't pan out as useful leads, I've added the useful discoveries to my own list of finding aids, just in case my family history questions lead me back along that path again in the future.

You may hear the term "finding aid" used by archivists, and it may sound like a far-reaching notion for the "little ol' me" researcher. But don't put yourself in that box. The family history questions you are tackling are just as informative as any other researcher's history quest. Despite perhaps having a more limited sphere of influence, the information you find on the actions taken by your ancestors still can be discoveries that make a significant difference for you and your generation of their descendants.

Creating your own personal finding aid for new locations you are researching doesn't have to be as complex as this example from the Society of American Archivists, but the format can give you an idea of what people generally find helpful in such a researcher's guide. While places such as the United States' own National Archives consider finding aids as indispensable tools, even the National Archives acknowledges that finding aids can be created by "private organizations and parties." Why not us?

So, as I struggle with this research roadblock in identifying just which Albert Roberts is the right identity for the antique photograph I found, I may as well lay a foundation for return trips for further research in Council Bluffs. One never knows when such a tool will come in handy again.

Besides, in the making of it for this first attempt, it will enable me to broaden my horizons and reach out to people with pockets of specialized knowledge that I may never otherwise have encountered. I'll be out there, asking questions about where I can go to find answers about my specific research question. The path may take a few twists and turns, but at the end of the process, if I keep both my research journal and a record of the resources I've discovered, I'll be better prepared to tackle such a problem again. Better yet, I'll also be able to pass along the advice to others who could use the help. 

Research as if you lived there all your life. Then share, when you finally stumble upon the answers.

Since Everyone's on Facebook

Well...maybe not everyone. But enough people to help put that six degrees of separation idea to work, at least for reuniting antique photographs with their family members.

Before I ever started puzzling over which of three potential candidates were the true contestants for the likeness of Mr. and Mrs. Albert Roberts of Council Bluffs, Iowa—will the real ones please stand up?—I had been working on an adorable picture of a toddler whose family likely had lived in the Reno, Nevada, area. Stuck once again, I decided to see what would happen if I posted the photo on the Facebook page for the local genealogical society.

As things turned out, there was no local genealogical society from northern Nevada with a Facebook page (or group). But there was the Nevada state society. So that was where this adorable, lost cherub made her appearance last November.

In response, I discovered another researcher after my own heart, who has been reuniting lost photographs with family members for the past twenty years. Naturally, I used the opportunity of bumping into her online to ask for tips. After all, she'd been at it for far longer than I have.

Her suggestion? In a private message, she advised: "try posting on some of the FaceBook pages dedicated to lost treasures.''

I started searching for that term on Facebook, and pulled up several such groups. Hey, there are a lot of people doing this very same thing. I found Lost and Found Genealogy Pictures, a group started in 2018 which now has over seven thousand members. A similarly named, but much older group, Genealogy: Lost and Found, has grown to five thousand from their start in 2013. Not to confuse things, another group, founded two months before the previously-named group, sports the name Genealogy: LOST and FOUND—and a follower base of seventeen thousand.

As it turned out, there are several such groups on Facebook, dedicated to offering a stage for people who do what I do: rescue abandoned family photos and find a way to send them back to descendants. Once I found them, I did the only reasonable thing I could: I joined them all.

At about the same time I met this researcher with the twenty year track record of rescuing old photos, someone else—turns out, one of the group admins—posted a comment below the picture I had shared, suggesting that I check out another Facebook group called From Shrubs to Trees, an appropriate moniker.

Then came the holidays. Not much of genealogical progress is made then. But with life after New Year's, the Facebook queries are rolling out. While each post becomes only another drop in a churning ocean of—who are we kidding here? Let's make that another needle in a mile-high haystack—at least it's one more attempt at a miracle reunion than we've had before this point. Maybe someone, somewhere...

The more I talk, the more I think I'm talking myself out of confidence. What did that song say? I have confidence in... Well, maybe, sometimes, I don't. And in cases like that, it's back to the drawing board and more research tactics again. There are still other ways to find our answer.