It’s time for another themed month. This time it’s postcards.  Three guests this month share stories about their personal connections with these mailable images. In this episode, English collector Mark Routh chats about his collection which spans 1869 to the present. He has some museum-quality gems. Did you know that dirigibles mailed items for their passengers?  Neither did I.  You won’t believe how many postcards he’s accumulated in his lifetime.  It all began with a single card that his father gave him.  

Related Episodes:

Episode 116: America and the Tintype with Steven Kasher

Episode 108: Researching the Ships of Our Ancestors

Links:

• Picture Postcard Monthly
• Sign up for my newsletter.
• Watch my YouTube Channel.
• Like the Photo Detective Facebook Page so you get notified of my Facebook Live videos.
• Need help organizing your photos? Check out the Essential Photo Organizing Video Course.
• Need help identifying family photos? Check out the Identifying Family Photographs Online Course.
• Have a photo you need help identifying? Sign up for photo consultation.

About My Guest:

Mark Routh’s postcard collection began 50 years ago.  He’s a recently retired police officer.  He has a substantial collection from all periods of postcard production (1869 – 2021).

He  wrote  a regular postcard article for the international magazine Picture Postcard Monthly – 1992 to 2020 (the pandemic closed down the magazine)

He now writes a monthly article for the new international magazine Picture Postcard Collecting which started up in 2020 as a replacement for the previously mentioned magazine.

About Maureen Taylor:

Maureen is a frequent keynote speaker on photo identification, photograph preservation, and family history at historical and genealogical societies, museums, conferences, libraries, and other organizations across the U.S., London, and Canada.  She’s the author of several books and hundreds of articles and her television appearances include The View and The Today Show (where she researched and presented a complete family tree for host Meredith Vieira).  She’s been featured in The Wall Street Journal, Better Homes and Gardens, The Boston Globe, Martha Stewart Living, Germany’s top newspaper Der Spiegel, American Spirit, and The New York Times. Maureen was recently a spokesperson and photograph expert for MyHeritage.com, an internationally known family history website, and also writes guidebooks, scholarly articles, and online columns for such media as Smithsonian.com. Learn more at Maureentaylor.com

Did you enjoy this episode? Please leave a review on Apple Podcasts.

The post Episode 139: Collecting Postcards for a Half Century with Mark Routh appeared first on Maureen Taylor.

Photo captions can be short, incomplete, mysterious, or full of clues. It all depends on who’s writing it and when. The caption on this image is different.  It’s in two parts in a different script and the authors are arguing. When I saw this image sitting in a bin, I had to have it.  It’s the first time I’ve ever seen a caption quite like this.

We’ve been using this image to demonstrate the digital photo organizer MemoryWeb’s back/front photo linking feature. This is definitely a caption that we don’t want to lose and back/front linking means I don’t have to search for two separate images. They are together in my MemoryWeb account.

In my quest to find the truth behind the caption, I’ve fallen into research rabbit holes (as genealogists call them) and now know more about the subject of the caption than likely his living family did.

But I don’t know everything and that’s where I could use a little help.

Let’s start at the beginning. There are five basic clues present on/in the image—photographer’s name, a location, the identity of one caption writer, what they are wearing, and the father’s name.

The caption casts doubt on the father’s career. Was he a success or was he a failure?  That’s the big question.  

Photographer and Location

Henry Grimsehl of 229 Prospect Ave., near 5^th Ave, Brooklyn, N.Y.  took this group portrait in Prospect Park. That’s easy. The imprint is on the back and the place is recognizable.  He was a German immigrant who took pictures in New York City and later in Brooklyn. He was a photographer in Brooklyn from about 1892 at that address, and after 1902 at 299 Prospect. Grimsehl died in 1919.

The group posed in front of the Prospect Park Concert Grove Pavilion. It still stands and is undergoing restoration. The restaurant on the left-hand side of the image was demolished in 1946. It’s mentioned in the caption as proof of a man’s success and that’s where the story gets interesting.  

The Caption

I love that Edmund Voigt signed his caption. “Prospect Park Brooklyn where Dad held the restaurant and café concession.”  That part seems clear, right?  Not so fast. There is a person in a chef/cooking staff outfit standing in the center of the image. Edmund continues. “That might be Dad on right standing looks like him except the mouth.”

Above his statements is where the argument starts. An unnamed person, “Dad Helmuth Voigt was not a successful businessman. He would start a business, go broke then leave it. Never could save anything.”  Seems pretty apparent that there is no love lost between the writer and their father.  Below Edmund’s identification is “that is NOT Dad, no I’m afraid.”

From their caption, we know that both commenters are children of Helmuth and that one of them was Edmund. There’s no gray area in the disagreement.

Tracking Helmut

Finding Helmuth’s life story took time. Ancestry.com, MyHeritage.com, various newspaper databases, Ellis Island, FamilySearch.com, and Google. I now have a timeline of his life with gaps. You’ll see what I mean. Rather than research backward from his death, let’s build a timeline working forward. Dating photos often involves doing extensive research to find clues that relate to an image in hand. Not everything I’ve found is relevant to the image, but it’s a good idea to accumulate as much information as possible.

16-year-old Helmuth Voigt/Voight, born 13 October 1865 in Meisenbach, Rudolstadt, left Bremen, Germany aboard the General Werder which departed Bremen, Germany, and arrived in New York on 19 June 1882.[i]

From 1882 until 1889, there is a gap in Helmuth’s story. In 1889, he’s living in Waterbury, Connecticut, and is naturalized on January 14 of that year. While he claimed to live in Waterbury, only a Michael Voigt/Vogt appears in the city directories for 1886 to 1889. Although Helmut did live there in 1907 and 1908. Of course, it’s possible for Michael to be a relative of his, but there is no proof of that at this point. [ii]

Helmuth’s next stop is San Francisco where he states his occupation in voter registration rolls as a waiter in 1890 and a steward in 1892. In 1893 he marries an English immigrant, Jennie Thomas in Santa Clara.  It’s the first marriage for both. [iii]

According to his 1897 passport application, Helmuth Voigt, a resident of Brooklyn, stated that he wanted to return to Germany for three months, but instead didn’t return until early September 1898. It doesn’t appear that a wife traveled with him.[iv]

For photo identification purposes, the passport included physical details. He stood 5 ft 6 ¾ inches had a high forehead, gray eyes, and a prominent nose. He had a fair complexion, oblong face, and light-colored hair.  This description will be handy for sorting through the men in the group portrait.[v] 

Searching the Census

With a known relationship of father and son in the caption, it was time for a census search.  Helmut and Edmund appear together in 1910, 1920, and 1930 census for Schenectady, New York. 

Edmund was born in 1910 and he had a sister Lillian four years older. Sometimes enumerators add a bit more information. For marriages on this page, she put a superscript 2 or 1 next to the M for married.  It’s the second marriage for both Helmuth and his Scottish immigrant bride of two years.  While Minnie is Edmund’s mother, Lillian is not Minnie’s child, her mother’s nationality was given as German (likely a mistake), and a place of birth of Connecticut.  Further searching identified Minnie as Mary Boyd.  Perhaps Lillian was born to Jennie and Helmuth, but so far, no birth records or death records fill in that blank.[vi]

Enumerators collected information from who they could and that lead to discrepancies. The 1920 census asks year of immigration and naturalization which for Helmuth the enumerator wrote 1890 and 1895. It’s definitely worth looking at each census to study all the columns. Ten years later Helmuth’s immigration date in the census was 1880 when in fact he arrived in 1882. It’s important to verify the data given in a census record. [vii]

Dating the Image

Notice that I had a gap in the timeline between 1898 when Helmut returns from Germany and the census of 1910.  It’s an interesting coincidence. You’ll see why.

There are plentiful clothing clues in this image from what infants wore to older women. It’s a broad spectrum of fashion in a particular time period. Always look for the most fashionable woman in a picture. Babies can wear hand-me-downs and older folks may don their best but outdated outfit for a portrait. The small straw sailor hat was worn by the woman on the left and the hair ornament sticking up the hair of the oldest woman help date the image to circa 1899-1900. This image fits neatly into the timeline, exactly where there is a gap. The missing information includes a lack of a census record for Helmuth.

In 1900, Helmuth would be 35.

Let’s take another look at the photo. In it, there are clusters of people. They are likely posed in family groups.

 On the left, it’s a young woman, an older middle-aged/older woman, and standing behind them is a man who could be in his thirties. 

The cluster in the middle consists of a seated man in his probable 40s flanked by two boys likely less than 10. Behind stands a man about the same age in a chef cap. Both men have dark hair and eyes.  They bear a resemblance to each other and to the woman with the sailor cap.

On the far right are two twenty/thirty-something women (one with a baby) and a man possibly thirty-something. He has lighter hair and eyes.  Since Helmut’s passport application identified him as having a prominent nose, high forehead, light hair, and grey eyes it’s clear that’s why Edmund suggested it was his father.

Edmund pointed him out to be his father with the exception of the mouth. Lillian didn’t support his identification. If it isn’t Edmund then who is it and why did Edmund mistake the man for his father? At the time of his birth, Helmuth was 45. Perhaps his appearance had changed significantly since the photo.

I spot some family resemblances in the men, especially the men with mustaches. They could be brothers. The woman in the tiny hat could be their sister and the older woman their mother. The light hair and eyes on “Helmuth” make him stand out. It’s just another puzzle in this picture for which I don’t have evidence.

Food and Family

It could be a family photo celebrating a significant event. For instance, in 1897, there was an Emil Vogt who operated a restaurant at the Park Circle Hotel, opposite the entrance to Prospect Park as a “competent caterer.”  It’s possible the food business ran in the family. Edmund later becomes a baker. Helmut always claimed to be a waiter. [viii]

Helmuth Voigt died in Schenectady in 1936, where he’d lived for 28 years.  His obit mentioned him being a waiter for 27 years, a fact that is confirmed through city directories and census research. In the 1907 city directory for Waterbury, Connecticut Helmuth worked at The Elton, a luxury hotel still in operation. It’s the only mention of an exact place of employment for him. There is no mention in city directories of him being associated as an owner of a series of businesses. As for Helmuth being a failure, there is a discrepancy. At the time of the 1930 census, he owned a house worth four thousand dollars in Schenectady, New York (and a radio).[ix]

 There are so many missing details. When I look at this photo, I see the groups as possibly representing branches of a family. There could be other Voigts living in the area or perhaps they aren’t Voigt’s. Helmut lived at various times in Brooklyn, northern California, Schenectady, and Waterbury/Hartford Connecticut. When he died there remained a connection to Brooklyn.

According to a front-page article in the Times Union newspaper of Schenectady at the time of Helmuth’s death, “a rush message was sent to Brooklyn.” Two phonograph records were then sent back to Schenectady. They contained funeral music and burial service in lieu of a clergy person. There were German organizations in Brooklyn and it’s possible Helmuth maintained connections with one of them. The newspaper doesn’t state whether the recordings were in English or German.[x]

Edmund lived with his mother for the rest of her life and never married.  When she died in 1960, her obituary mentioned another child, Mrs. John George Schilke of Bristol, Connecticut who was Lillian. Searching for information on Lillian turned up an obituary for her husband where his wife is Lillian Frances Ehle, a curious find. Perhaps Lillian’s mother was actually German and didn’t carry the Voight name. It’s possible but unlikely that Lillian had an earlier marriage unless she married in her teens. Minnie’s survivors included her two children, three grandchildren, and nine great-grandchildren.[xi]  

How the photograph ended up in a Pawtucket, Rhode Island antique shop is a mystery.

Remaining questions.

There are still so many unanswered questions about this image from how it came to be in the Voigt family to who’s in it. It seems possible that Lillian and Edmund would have met other Voigt relations, but perhaps not.  Lillian is adamant in the caption that it is not their father. It’s possible that Lillian was mistaken and the man with the right height and coloring was her father and one of the women is her mother. Or one of the women is Jennie.  If that’s the case, there is yet another mystery. 

I’m looking for:

• When and where did Helmut marry Minnie/Mary Boyd? Could there be another marriage?
• What happened to his first wife Jennie? And were there any children?
• Evidence of businesses in which Helmut was involved
• Why is Lillian stating her maiden name as Ehle?
• Why isn’t Helmuth in the 1900 U.S. census?

I’m convinced this is a solvable photo problem. With 12 descendants living as of 1960, work could be done to contact them to see if anyone has a photo of Helmut.  It’s slow going to contact living descendants even when you discover the names of Lillian’s three children. Fingers crossed.

Endnotes

[i]  Year: 1882; Arrival: New York, New York, USA; Microfilm Serial: M237, 1820-1897; Line 44; List Number:836. Ancestry.com. U.S., Passport Applications, 1795-1925 [database on-line]. Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2007; Roll #484; Volume # Roll 484-01 Apr 1897-16 Apr 1897, Passport number 1530 dated April 13, 1897.

[ii] Ancestry.com. U.S. Naturalization Record Indexes, 1791-1992 (Indexed in World Archives Project) [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2010. This collection was indexed by Ancestry World Archives Project. National Archives and Records Administration (NARA); Washington, D.C.; Index to New England Naturalization Petitions, 1791-1906 (M1299); Microfilm Serial: M1299; Microfilm Roll: 36; MyHeritage.com, U.S. City Directories, Waterbury, Connecticut 1886-1889, 1906-1907.

[iii] Ancestry.com. California, U.S., Voter Registrations, 1900-1968 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2017. California Marriages, 1850-1945. Database. FamilySearch.org: 6 January 2021.

[iv] Ancestry.com, U.S. Passport Applications, 1897; List or Manifest of Alien Immigrants. Helmuth Voight. 1898. https://heritage.statueofliberty.org/passenger-details/czoxMjoiNjAyOTA1MDgwMTAwIjs=/czo4OiJtYW5pZmVzdCI7  

[v] Ancestry.com, U.S. Passport Applications, 1897.

[vi] Ancestry.com. 1910 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2006. Year: 1910; Census Place: Schenectady Ward 7, Schenectady, New York; Roll: T624_1078; Page: 6B; Enumeration District: 0199; FHL microfilm: 1375091; Ancestry.com. U.S., Social Security Applications and Claims Index, 1936-2007 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2015. Original data: Social Security Applications and Claims, 1936-2007, Edmund Voight. ; MyHeritage.com, New York Newspapers, 1806-2007, Obituary. Mary Elizabeth Voight. Schenectady Gazette, June 11, 1960.

[vii] Ancestry.com, 1910 United States Federal Census; Ancestry.com. 1920 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2010. Images reproduced by FamilySearch. Year: 1920; Census Place: Schenectady Ward 13, Schenectady, New York; Roll: T625_1263; Page: 8A; Enumeration District: 192

[viii] Newspapers.com, advertisement. Park Circle Hotel. July 4, 1897.  Brooklyn Daily Eagle

[ix] Newspapers.com, notice. “Phonograph Record Provides Funeral Service,” Times Union (Schenectady, New York), March 13, 1936, 1.  U.S. City Directories, Waterbury, Connecticut 1907; “United States Census, 1930,” database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:X4T5-JZ7 : accessed 15 July 2021), Edmund W Voigt in household of Helmuth Voigt, Rotterdam, Schenectady, New York, United States; citing enumeration district (ED) ED 17, sheet 22B, line 56, family 485, NARA microfilm publication T626 (Washington D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 2002), roll 1644; FHL microfilm 2,341,378.

[x] Newspapers.com, notice. “Phonograph Record Provides Funeral Service,” Times Union (Schenectady, New York), March 13, 1936, 1.

[xi] MyHeritage.com, Obituary for Mary Voight. Schenectady Gazette, June 11, 1960. Ancestry.com, “Obituary of J. George Schilke,” Hartford Courant, May 2, 1965.

The post A Photo Mystery and a Family Argument appeared first on Maureen Taylor.

Every month, Maureen tackles photo identification, photo preservation questions from those submitted through social media and email. You can submit a question through photodetective@maureentaylor.com

This month’s questions:

• After scanning portraits, what to do concerning saving or discarding the card stock photo frame/folders. Will that card stock damage the photo long-term?
• What should I use to mark the back of un-mounted tintypes?
• I inherited family pictures that are incredibly old. Many of them are in old scrapbooks that are slowly deteriorating with age. I know there are facts written on the back of many photos, but I am torn about taking the albums apart to organize and store vs keeping them as I received them where someone put a lot of thought into it at the time. Thoughts or suggestions to offer?
• If I am scanning and saving documents for family archival purposes, what is the best way to title each picture when I save it? Also, should I save it as a tiff or jpg?
• I know this has been asked before, but what pen/pencil should I use to identify photos?
• Any updates on the family movies you sent out? How are you planning to save and share any digital versions?
• I have inherited a large collection of photos from my mother-in-law’s school. How can I get them online so that people can find them?
• Our poor coal miner /steelworker ancestors in the 1900’s took quite large wedding photos.  Where might one find the cost of a photo like this way back then?

Related Episodes:

Episode 125: Ask Maureen April 2021

Episode 117: Ask Maureen February 2021

Links:

• Where to Find the Products Maureen Uses
• Sign up for my newsletter.
• Watch my YouTube Channel.
• Like the Photo Detective Facebook Page so you get notified of my Facebook Live videos.
• Need help organizing your photos? Check out the Essential Photo Organizing Video Course.
• Need help identifying family photos? Check out the Identifying Family Photographs Online Course.
• Have a photo you need help identifying? Sign up for photo consultation.

About Maureen Taylor:

Maureen is a frequent keynote speaker on photo identification, photograph preservation, and family history at historical and genealogical societies, museums, conferences, libraries, and other organizations across the U.S., London and Canada.  She’s the author of several books and hundreds of articles and her television appearances include The View and The Today Show (where she researched and presented a complete family tree for host Meredith Vieira).  She’s been featured in The Wall Street Journal, Better Homes and Gardens, The Boston Globe, Martha Stewart Living, Germany’s top newspaper Der Spiegel, American Spirit, and The New York Times. Maureen was recently a spokesperson and photograph expert for MyHeritage.com, an internationally known family history website and also writes guidebooks, scholarly articles and online columns for such media as Smithsonian.com. Learn more at Maureentaylor.com

Did you enjoy this episode? Please leave a review on Apple Podcasts.

The post Episode 138: Ask Maureen July 2021 Edition appeared first on Maureen Taylor.

Attorney David Whitcomb purchased space for a new office and found forgotten picture history of the suffrage movement. These old photos revealed clues about local history and national politics.

In our last house, we found a note from the first owner hidden beneath the wallpaper. Nothing too amazing. His name and a date. In this house, there is a cobweb filled bin in the back of the basement filled with old doors that were once used. I’m actually afraid to dig around in it, but this podcast episode is inspiring me to do so.  

Perhaps you’ve discovered a forgotten bit of the past in a place you’ve lived or worked? I’ve received countless emails from people that have found photographs in the darndest places when they are renovating houses–in walls, behind fireplaces, and more.  Never has anyone ever said they found a whole room.  Well…that is until I spoke with attorney David Whitcomb and his amazing unexpected find.   

His tale will have you looking in closets, examining ceilings and hoping to rediscover lost history like he did.  

Related Episodes:

Bonus  Lost History Discovered (in the Recycling)

Episode 84 U.S. Naval Photo Collections: Online Resources You Can Use

Links:

• CNN coverage of the story
• Sign up for my newsletter.
• Watch my YouTube Channel.
• Like the Photo Detective Facebook Page so you get notified of my Facebook Live videos.
• Need help organizing your photos? Check out the Essential Photo Organizing Video Course.
• Need help identifying family photos? Check out the Identifying Family Photographs Online Course.
• Have a photo you need help identifying? Sign up for photo consultation.

About My Guest:

David J. Whitcomb is the founder/owner of Whitcomb Law Firm, P.C.  Mr. Whitcomb is a graduate of Canandaigua Academy (1995) and obtained his law degree from the Catholic University of America, Columbus School of Law (2007).  Mr. Whitcomb focuses his practice on real estate (transactions, contracts, leases, and evictions), lending, estate planning and probate, business entity formation and representation as well as representation in matrimonial and criminal matters.

About Maureen Taylor:

Maureen is a frequent keynote speaker on photo identification, photograph preservation, and family history at historical and genealogical societies, museums, conferences, libraries, and other organizations across the U.S., London and Canada.  She’s the author of several books and hundreds of articles and her television appearances include The View and The Today Show (where she researched and presented a complete family tree for host Meredith Vieira).  She’s been featured in The Wall Street Journal, Better Homes and Gardens, The Boston Globe, Martha Stewart Living, Germany’s top newspaper Der Spiegel, American Spirit, and The New York Times. Maureen was recently a spokesperson and photograph expert for MyHeritage.com, an internationally known family history website and also writes guidebooks, scholarly articles and online columns for such media as Smithsonian.com. Learn more at Maureentaylor.com

Did you enjoy this episode? Please leave a review on Apple Podcasts.

The post Episode 137: The Walls Can Talk: Finding History in a Hidden Room with David Whitcomb appeared first on Maureen Taylor.

One time a reporter asked me to tell them how many photos I’ve seen in my career. I’m simply not able to estimate that number. As a picture person, I look at client images, ones for my collection, and then the ones I use for research purposes. Suffice to say I’ve looked at more images in my life than I can say. That means it’s a rare photo that makes me go, “What?!” Yet that’s exactly what I said when William Samland showed me two images.

Here’s the first one. It’s his great grandfather. It’s a lovely studio shot of a man in work clothes. Nothing unusual except for the way he wears his watch fob on his hips.

It was the next image that made me go hmm.

It appears that George (or his family) wanted a more formal image of him so they took the first picture to a studio and had them alter it. It’s now a crayon portrait and instead of work clothes George is wearing a suit. Perhaps he went to the same studio a second time, but there is something about this image that makes me think he didn’t. Look closely.

There are a couple of differences. The artist thinned George’s mustache. It’s not unusual to see artistic changes in a crayon sketch.

It’s the same exact pose, chair and background. So were they both created in the same time frame. It’s possible. Crayon portraits like this had stylistic differences depending on when they were made. If the first picture was taken in the 1890s then George would be in his thirties. The color tone of the photo and the background suggests that. The chair is out of the mid 1860s but studios often held on to props. There is no photographer listed on either image.

While this isn’t the first time I’ve seen a double like this, this set is particularly nice. Thank you to Bill Samland for letting me feature his image in this post.

Photo Consults

Do you have a photo you’d like to know more about? I’d love to help. Each consult comes with a recording. There are rates for one, three, or many images.

The post An Altered Reality: One Man. Two Photos appeared first on Maureen Taylor.