Category: Identification

Veterans Day: Ralph Leonard

Posted on by Kathleen

Do you guys remember when I started this blog nine months (!) ago, and I said I was imposing a full disclosure policy. Here’s where it comes into play again. My original plan was to make a list of my military ancestors for Veterans Day. I hoped to have a list of people that served. I have a ton of Draft cards but a lot of those guys didn’t serve from what I can tell. So I was hoping to have a nice list of servicemen and women to eventually gather records for. That didn’t exactly happen.

Ralph H Leonard

I got distracted, like I often do. I opened PhotoShop to edit the above picture for this very blog post. I was going to use it to anchor the post. Make it pop. Then I got distracted, again. Yesterday I posted about my Marine family history so I had Marines on the brain. That’s when I noticed the emblem on Ralph’s hat. Could he be a Marine? How cool would that be?

So naturally I went to my first stop for all things military. I emailed my Dad. While I was waiting to see if he had any ideas, I had a thought. I was just at Prospect Hill Cemetery. Maybe he was one of the graves I photographed and I didn’t put two and two together. Since I was on my laptop, I just went to Find a Grave where I had uploaded all my graveyard photos anyway. Bingo! I was thinking that he was in the Marines because of the emblem but his gravestone clearly said WWI USNRF which translates to Navy Reserve Force. Right about the time I figured this out I got a response from my father:

It looks to me to be an early 1900’s naval officer probably ww1 time frame. By the insignia on his cap I would think he would have been attached a Marine outfit.

Oh dear, he’s going to be so proud of himself for this! Now you know why I go to him for all things military! So now I know that Ralph was in the Navy and served in WWI. The only problem is I don’t have a WWI Draft Card for Ralph. I have one for his older brother but not him. So I’m going to have to assume he was already in the service when WWI came around. I do know that Ralph was trained in Aviation by 1930, so maybe he got military aviation training? I don’t know.

This is the part of genealogy I love. Just when you think you’ve found out everything about someone, you find a little nugget that opens it all up again.

Ralph Leonard Links:

Thorward Boys

Posted on by Kathleen

Oh gosh, I am sorry sorry for my absence this week! I wasn’t feeling well most of the week and time just flew by. I’m on the mend, so now it’s time to get back to work. I’m still trying to make sense of my Mays ancestors in my new clean family file. It’s going very sloooooooooow. Sorry for all the os. They were necessary! That’s really how slow it’s going! I haven’t even been able to add many of the Mays’ to the website yet, because of the problems I’m having finding and identifying them! Maybe if they weren’t all named the same thing!

So I’m posting a picture today from my Dad’s side of the family. Even though I have his family sorted and sourced in my family file, I’m still going through those pictures I have.

Thorward Boys
Continue reading “Thorward Boys” →

It Suckered Us All In

Posted on by Kathleen

As I was writing up yesterday’s Mystery Monday post, I was reminded of the single, most consuming mystery I’ve ever had. It started when I first started going through the boxes of treasures/photographs/papers. When I first started scanning the photographs into my computer, I just labeled them UnknownMooreThorward-01 and so on. Funny enough, years after solving this mystery and they’re still named that.

Mystery Photo #1

This is the photo that launched the hours, months, years of frustration. Okay, so I’m exaggerating a tiny bit. It did take me years to solve this though. I would pick it up every few months and try again. I don’t know why I was so struck by this picture. I was just so curious about this building.

Continue reading “It Suckered Us All In” →

Mystery Monday: Where?

Posted on by Kathleen
Where am I?

My Mystery Monday posts usually have to do with the people in my photographs. That isn’t the case today. I’ve been wondering for awhile about where this particular picture is taken. I’ve had numerous inputs, one being around the Jersey Shore and others being another Jersey town. The only thing everyone agrees on is that this is Jersey. My questions about places aren’t usually solved quickly. Remind me to tell you about the Victory Arch photograph… In fact, I’ll write that up sometime this week. It’s a great story!

What I know about this photo:

  • It was most likely taken in New Jersey… somewhere.
  • It is most likely a member of the Thorward family.

What I want to know about this photo:

  • Where this particular house is?
  • Who’s house is this?
  • Who are the people in the photograph?
  • How are they related or connected to my family?
  • Where those awnings green and white? For some reason I feel like they were green and white?
  • Can I have a time machine to walk through these old houses? Pretty please?

Mystery Monday is a weekly series on my blog. It is now a Daily Blogging Theme at GeneaBloggers also! Feel free to post about your own mysteries and link me to them!

Mystery Monday: A Postcard

Posted on by Kathleen

It’s been a crazy week here in Maryland! The last few days have been spent dealing with flooding and repairs to our roof. Now that those crazy rain totals are behind us, I’m getting back into my genealogy. Here is this week’s Mystery Monday.

Things I know about this picture:

  1. This picture is on the front of a postcard. I’m assuming it’s from the same time period of the George Thorward car picture. His isn’t on a postcard but in a decorative postcard-like envelope. It is also labeled with ” 1st Car 1905″ and has a picture of the Statue of Liberty on it.
  2. Most likely the picture was from New York City. I’d have to look it up again to be sure. I’m thinking it was from the 1939 World’s Fair in New York. In fact, the car looks like the 1904 First Rolls Royce.  Which would fit in with the 1905 date written on the George Thorward picture.

Things I want to know about this picture:

  1. Who is the family posing in this picture? I’m not sure but the girl looks familiar. So I might have more pictures of her in my files somewhere.
  2. Was this in fact taken at the World’s Fair? That would give me a date on the photo to better place the family.

Mystery Monday is a weekly series that I do here on my blog. It is also a blogging theme at GeneaBloggers now. Feel free to post your own mystery photos or stories and comment with the link!

I finished my 10!

Posted on by Kathleen

Last night, I sat down and decided to finish off my 10 pages of indexing the South Carolina Estate Files. It was a great experience. I learned a lot about how estate files worked, I made improvements on deciphering handwriting, and I helped out the genealogy community! It was a win win situation.

I can’t say it was the easiest thing I’ve ever done. I found it a bit of a challenge, but a fun one! It was a big eye opener for me in terms of what the country was like at the time. I was indexing estates from 1849, so it was before the Civil War. It was so strange to see people referred to like they were. I just can’t imagine living in a world where that was happening. Even though I’ve always known about that dark part of our history, this made it so much more real to me.

Once I got into the swing of indexing, it was much easier and I got a bit faster (which wasn’t the point of it, I was previously doing just 1 page every few days). Those last 6 pages flew by! Between these records and indexing for FamilySearch, I’ve realized how much I really enjoy the challenge of deciphering handwriting!

Once I knock out this site redesign in the next few weeks, I’m definitely doing another 10! If you’d like to volunteer too, you can sign up at the LowCountry Africana website. This is a very important project and even if it doesn’t pertain to your family, you could be helping out someone else!

Mystery Monday: Beulah Miller

Posted on by Kathleen

In the same batch of travel photos as the last Mystery Monday entry, we have these two.

Things I know about these photos:

  1. The name written on the back is Beulah Miller.
  2. The pictures were taken at the same time as the Alma Lycett picture. (sometime between 1923 and 1926)
  3. The trip was most likely with Llewellyn’s church, though I can’t confirm it yet.

Things I’d like to know about these pictures:

  1. Really I’d just like to connect the picture with it’s proper family! I know how wonderful it is to have a picture, so I’d love to know who Beulah belongs to!

Mystery Monday is an ongoing series I’m doing here on my blog. It’s also now a GeneaBloggers blogging theme topic. Feel free to post about your own mysteries!

Mystery Monday: Alma Lycett

Posted on by Kathleen

I have a huge series of photos that look to be Llewellyn and some friends on a trip. This could coincide with the travel places in the front of her diary, or it could be a whole other time. After discussing it with my Aunts, they said most likely it was a Church trip. That makes the most sense to me also. This picture is a little different from my usual Mystery Monday photos. I know who this is. Her name is Alma Lycett. I know this because it was written on the back of the photo and I made sure to label the file when I scanned it. A quick census search shows the closest match in age and name is Alma M Lycett, who lived in Norwalk, Connecticut. Llewellyn’s travel list shows her visiting Middletown, New Haven and Hartford Connecticut in July of 1923. Interesting.

I’m really putting this photo up for anyone who may be searching for Alma someday. Hopefully I’ve used the right keywords to bring someone here.

Mystery Monday is an ongoing series of photos I’m posting that have some kind of mystery attached to them.

Mystery Monday: The Return

Posted on by Kathleen

Things I know about this picture

  • My Grandfather is the young child front and center. The older girl is holding him up.

Things I want to know about this picture

  • Who are the other children?
  • If they are related, which side of the family are they from? William’s? Llewellyn’s?
  • If it is through Llewellyn, then is it through the Thorwards or the Loves?
  • It could be a collection of children from different families, a family reunion maybe?

Mystery Monday is an ongoing series I’m doing to showcase the photos I am having problems identifying. I hope one day someone will land on the site and recognize a relative!