All Sorts of Records Hold Genealogical Clues
Census and vital records may be the starting place for many genealogists, but clues to ancestry are far-ranging and eclectic. A hundred year-old postcard addressed to Master Billy Smith might wish him happy birthday on June the 5th. A two hundred year-old letter might reveal that Nathan Jones was living in Brockelton when he bought the land in Farmville that was to be the family farm for generations to come. Where does one find such obscure material? HERE!
Big Data in Little Packages
Memorabilia are all the little paper ephemera, photographs and documents that are so ubiquitous as to be deemed nearly value-less. Postcards are perhaps the most common and easily found of these, but photographs, receipts, visiting cards, business or trade cards, checks, letters and even envelopes without letters, are all further examples of the genre.
But consider the potential genealogical and historical information these scraps from the past contain. Even the most basic 'cover' as the philatelists call a used envelope, includes the full name and address of a person, and often a postmark to provide an exact date. If there is a return address then we have that information for two people. Because most people move several times during their lifespan, knowing their exact location on a specific date can be quite useful -- telling us where we might find further records for that time period.
Postcards and letters offer the additional information of message content. And photographs let us see how the person appeared and dressed; subtle but insistent clues to their personality.
 Consider this postcard as an example, addressed to Miss Genevieve Breckler at Defiance, OH, dated September 6th, 1915. It is an example of the fine German color printing that dominated postcards of that period. The First World War was already raging in Europe, though the US had not yet joined in. The message portion is addressed 'Dear Cousin' and is signed Cecilia -- she mentions Estella spraining her ankle, and Papa going to Cal -- probably California.
We find Genevieve, age 24 and living in Noble, Defiance county, Ohio in the 1920 census, with her father Henry C age 69, brother Mickael aged 32, farmer with wife and two young sons, and her sisters aged 28 and 37, the 28 year old being a school teacher. So Genevieve would have been about 19 when she received this postcard from Cecilia. No doubt anyone searching the Breckler ancestry would be able to identify cousin Cecilia and poor Estella with her broken ankle.
 Or consider this postcard addressed to Mrs W E Bennett in Coer d'Alene Idaho from her sister, postmarked September 8, 1909 from Leonidas Michigan. A quick census search locates Laura and her husband William Bennett, along with their son John Earl, living in Coer d'Alene in 1910. The family was located in Leonidas Michigan in the 1900 census. William Bennett was a butcher in Michigan, but in Idaho he was working on a steam-boat as the purser, and son John Earl was a steam-boat fireman, probably on the same boat. Besides the family history clues provided by the postcard, we can see what Leonidas looked like at that time, and better judge what the Bennett lifestyle must have been like while they lived there.
 And while postcards are the most readily found and often the easiest memorabilia to date, there are innumerable other kinds of ephemera available. Here is a printed trade card, a common form of advertising in the 19th century. This one, besides having terrific graphics, mentions Edwin C Burt, of New York City, boot and shoe manufacturer, and L Witkowski, proprietor of the Star Boot and Shoe House in Denver Colorado. We can see from the several medals Mr Burt was awarded, between 1867 and 1878, that this card probably dates from about 1879 to 1885. Indeed, Corbett, Hoye and Co.'s Eighth Annual City Directory City of Denver, dated 1880, shows L Witkowski, Star Boot and Shoe House, 376 Lawrence, residence 323 Glenarm. The only other Witkowski listed in that directory of J Witkowski, who was a cashier for L Witkowski and shared the same residence. The lithographer for this item was Major and Knapp, who were successors to the firm established by Napoleon Sarony in the 1840s as Sarony and Major. It operated as Sarony, Major and Knapp in the late 1850s until the early 1860s when Sarony left the firm to persue his photographic career.
Or consider this bank-check, dated November 15th, 1871, and drawn on the Stissing National Bank of Pine Plains New York. The Clove Spring Iron Works in Beekman, New York, pays Bradford Thorpe $200, the check being signed by cashier Charles A Taylor. Stissing, Clove Spring, Beekman and Pine Plains are all Dutchess County New York placenames. Bradford Thorpe, age 42, is listed in the 1870 census in Dover, also in Dutchess County New York, where his occupation is listed as 'collier' -- that is, coal dealer. The check is doubtlessly for coal he supplied to the Iron works for their forges -- Mr Thorpe can probably use the cash -- he and his 30 year old (probably 2nd) wife are listed in the census with four sons and eight daughters, ranging in age from one month to 19 years.
 Letters, of course, offer all the benefits of postcards, only more so. Also, they are available much earlier, though certainly are more scarce. At left is a three page letter from the Civil War, dated October 23, 1862. Here is a transcription -- how many genealogical clues do you see?
Fair View, Md.
Oct 23d 1862
Dear Parents, Sisters, and Brother,
Again I sit down to inform you of my whereabouts, and that my health is "right smart" as the people say down here, and I hope these few lines will find you all blessed in a similar manner. I received Mother's letter of Sept. 28, on the morning of Oct 12th and have received none since nor have I had the chance to answer until now, and am obliged to hold on to my paper to keep the wind from blowing it away while writing. So you must excuse these scrawls. I rather "reckon" you would if you had ever experienced such conveniences. We have had a pretty tough time lately. Last Saturday our Regt. returned from a weeks "Piqueting" and when we reached camp we found the Brigade all ready to march. So in we went after them and just took a nice evening promenade from 6 o'clock until 2 Sunday morning. At last we stopped in a field full of stones and rested until day light and then off again we marched all day Sunday and at night stopped at Hancock a distance of 40 miles in 24 hrs. carrying our Overcoats, Blankets, Tents, Haversacks, canteens, Cartridge boxes, and guns. We laid Sunday night without tents, & the cold was all most "terrible", a very heavy Frost covered the ground in the morning. Monday we laid out our camp picked up the stones, and brush and then went and cut stakes and raised our tents. I had just completed mine. Piff.- just settled down to read and I to sew my britches when the Awful cry of "Marching Orders", "Strike your Tents" struck upon our ears. Down came the tents and in ten minutes the whole Division was in motion. And they didn't stop until midnight, it being so dark that we could not see each other's faces. Here we are where on morn we will move, I do not know. I would not be surprised if they got us out at midnight. We slept with our ammunition strapped on our backs and our guns close at hand. I wrote several letters home which I received no answer to as yet. I wrote one requesting you to send me some money. But I have received none in fact I have received no tidings from home since Sept. 28th. Please let me know if you received my letter and whether you sent me any money. If you did not, please send me $10 in your next. And let part be in the new U.S. postage currency if possible. As I said before my health is "tip tops" and after all the hard marches I am actually getting "fat". That is making myself out "right smart" at sojering I "reckon" as the southern people say. You don't here any "guessing" here. It is all "Reckon". Give my love to Grandma and Chenango friends. Good bye at present.
From your afct Son and brother,
Frank.
For family genealogists, however, the 'gold standard' among family memorabilia is the identified portrait photograph -- that rare, precious treasure of family history. Only a tiny fraction of surviving photographs from the 19th century have inscriptions identifying the subjects. I have a website devoted to searching out the history of identified images. I have only had time to add a dozen images to that site over the past year, but already three of the twelve have generated responses from descendants, such as:
Horace J. Bennett is my grandfather's, Linton Pillsbury Bennett, father...I would love to have more genealogical information.
How exciting to see this photo online. Catherine was my great-great aunt.
Wow~ so neat!! Frank and Catherine were my great grandparents!!
There are only a few sites online that recover old identified photographs, and fewer yet that include other forms of ephemera with genealogical information. Those that have been around a long time work their way up to having tens of thousands of items listed -- but that is still only a tiny fraction of those available. These items are all in the public-domain, there is no legal restriction on their use. Ownership of the originals does not confer copyright on the owner, and scanning or photographing a photo or printed sheet to make an accurate digital copy is not a sufficiently creative act to establish any copyright in the derivative image. These little treasures need to be preserved and made available to that small group of people interested in any particular item (i.e. descendants). The job is too big for any one person, but an individual could recover all the worthwhile ephemera for a single county. Rec-2-Gen county website owners will be given detailed guidance on how to do that.
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