So yesterday, my father impressed me with his instant knowledge of the uniform Ralph Leonard was wearing. So impressed, that I asked him to help a girl out and tell us all how he knew exactly what was going on.
1. His first clue was the anchor on the color. That tells him Navy.
2. The second thing he saw was the Marine emblem on that (I was right about that!). He says that most likely Ralph was attached to a Marine unit while he was serving.
3. The third thing he saw was the gold braiding around Ralph’s wrists and hat. This designates officers.
4. Lastly he knew it was WWI era by his gut instinct or the style of the uniform. Is that a scientific or technical answer? Of course not, but he was right and in the end that counts.
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.
At one of our reunions, I brought the picture up on my laptop and asked around. Many members of my family chimed in. No one really knew where it was though. We dissected it many times. We were analyzing the routes that the cars were taking. My father thought he saw a crane in the back and chimed in that it was probably a temporary structure. I scoffed at that! Who would tear that kind of building down! That was nonsense!
Mystery Photo #2
A few months later I stumbled upon this photograph among the others. This one doesn’t show the structure very well, but it gives a bit more detail among the pillars. This one was taken on a different day I think. Here you can see something draped between the pillars and you can see what looks like balloons!
This set our family on all new tangents. My Aunt even showed the picture to some of her customers and got their input. We researched everything from European architecture to the Sesqui-centennial celebration of 1926 in Philadelphia. I went so far as to order a program on eBay from the event and even emailed the Boston Historic Society! No stone was unturned. Then one day I found a genealogy community online. I decided why not see what happens and I posted the first picture. In a twist of fate that is very common to me, someone posted back within a few hours!
This may sound silly and redundant, but have you checked out Victory Arches?
Oh.
Oh.
Silly me, I didn’t even know what a victory arch was! So I quickly put my Google-fu to the test! Here’s a simple Google Image search of Victory Arches. Holy canoli, I was back on track!
Oh.
I was eventually led to an expired eBay auction for this item. In fact, if you search for it today, there are even more images now! It turns out my structure was an Arch of Victory that was erected to welcome the troops home from WWI.
Arch of Victory at Madison Square, New York City, with men of the Twenty-seventh (New York) Division marching in a victory parade that was witnessed by hundreds of thousands of cheering spectators. The city turned out in masse to do them honor, and they received a tremendous ovation along the line of march. The avenue was packed from buildings to curbs.
This is why I love the internet. It took two years, and many hours of research for this huge family mystery to be solved by one poster on an internet message board. We spent many a hour at reunions discussing what this structure could be. My Dad always maintained that it was probably temporary. Well, you can bet he had bragging rights for a long time on this one!
Google Street View
It’s funny how different the street looks today, yet it still looks the same. I don’t know if you can tell from the size of the images but the buildings from the original photograph seem to all still be standing and look almost exactly the same!
I love to torture myself now. Sure one mystery was solved but that leads to more questions! Was my family in the hundreds of thousands of people welcoming the troops home? Were any of my relatives one of the troops being welcomed home? Gosh I love a good story!
Marriage Record for Robert J Moore and Mary E Johnson
It came yesterday! Well technically it came on Saturday. We usually get Saturday’s mail when we’re out getting Sunday’s paper. It’s just the way we work it. I can’t believe this baby was in the mailbox all night and I didn’t know it! I ordered this record online on August 1st. I was prepared to wait 4 to 6 weeks like normal. I can’t believe it’s already here.
I have to move past that though and actually look at the record. It was two pages. In fact I was very familiar with the format of it because I’ve been transcribing some marriage records like this for FamilySearch indexing in my spare time. The first page was a bit harder to read but it does give me a few things. It gives me the marriage date of 23 Apr 1896. So now I know that Robert married just 6 months before his mother passed away. It also gives the witness to wedding, one Sarah T Adams. Since the person marrying Robert and Mary was named J S Adams, I’m going to take a stab in the dark and say Sarah was his wife.
Now onto the page pictured on the left. The address of 1845 Broadway is actually new. I hadn’t seen that one. Looking it up on Google though, it’s not out of the circle that the Moores lived in during their time in Brooklyn and it’s almost right next to the cemetery where they would bury Robert’s mother in 6 months. Robert’s occupation as an Insurance Agent is nothing new to me. He definitely did that for awhile. Father was William H Moore. Still all good information. Oh wait, there it is. Mother’s Maiden Name. I won’t keep this from you. When it comes to finding out this woman’s maiden name I have the worst luck in the world. When I got the record out of the envelope, I was so scared to even look for this section. Imagine my surprise when it wasn’t blank! It’s always blank! Not this time though. Looks like her maiden name was Starret. I could be wrong but it’s definitely a starting point!
Now lets move onto Mary E Johnson. The only things I’d known about her was what was listed on censuses and William’s (her son) birth certificate. The residence of 196 Macon Street, Brooklyn definitely gives me a starting point for her. Imagine looking for Mary E Johnson in Brooklyn, with parents born in Ireland. Now we move down the record to her parents. Oh! Oh! I’m just going to cry now, both her parents are listed. Arthur Johnson as her father and Annie Moffot (?) as her mother! Of course, if anyone has better ideas for the mother’s name, just let me know. I’m open to discussion.
I did a quick search of Arthur Johnson with a wife Annie. Believe it or not, the best matches came to a family living in Babylon, New York in 1870 and 1880. I want to look in the New York State Censuses before I rush to judgement though. I especially want to look in the 1892 one. That would be 4 years before this marriage, so I would imagine that would be my best chance of a good match!
Usually a Monday post would be something randomly thought up by myself, or it would have something to do with Madness Monday at GeneaBloggers. There is certainly enough madness to go around today. I’m deep into my 2010 Cleanup (Personal and Genealogy). On the genealogy front, I need to shape up my website a bit more in the design area. I would like a seamless transition between the main site and the blog. All my issues will be addressed in my next re-design. I just have to be patient enough to let them be for awhile!
Getting back on subject, since I don’t want to bore you guys with constant website nitpicking. I decided that since I have 1,000,000,000.9 unsolved photo mysteries, why not showcase one every Monday. Maybe someday, a person will come along that can help me solve it. It’s also a great way for me to let my extended family see a lot of these photos!
Mystery Monday #001
Clicking on the photo will open the full size version.
The background behind this photo is… nothing. There was nothing written on the back, there isn’t a group of photos anything like it. This photo is just thrown into the box of treasure. It’s not from my Mom’s side, so that puts it in the New Jersey, New York side of the family. Of course, that side came from Ireland, England, and Germany. So your guess is as good as mine about the origin of this photo.
This photo is my personal property. Please don’t copy or reproduce it without first asking me.
One of the many mysteries I’ve always had with my family tree is the Menzies family. Yes I’m pretty sure they came from Scotland, though some lived in England also. When I got my boxes of documents and photos, one of the many things in there were a whole bunch of miscellaneous articles about Menzies people. Nothing ever said how each person was linked. The closest I got was the Menu Tree.
Now that I’m getting better at researching, I think I may be starting to fill in some blanks, literally. The only clue I had to my Menzies connection to start with was Jennie Menzies’ mother, Jane Farris-Menzies, living with Jennie and her husband William W Love in 1880. That gave me a starting point. That’s what clued me in to how these random Menzies articles could be important. One was an Obituary for Alexander G Menzies. Another was an article about a ‘London Strangler’ who murdered a Lady Menzies and her daughter one night in February 1954. I still don’t know how those people are related but I am getting closer.
Yesterday I was searching for the Love family on Castle Garden. I was hoping to find William W Love in the time period that was indicated on the 1900 and 1910 census. Hopefully he would have been coming over with his mother and father so I could verify that. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find anything that was definitely him. I then decided to take a walk on the wild side and plugged Menzies into the search, just for fun. I didn’t have an immigration date as my Jane/Jennie Menzies-Love died in 1890 (wait till I find the article chronicling that!). I did however know her mother’s name and estimated birth date. I found the above Menzies in my search. My next step was trying to locate this particular family to see if it met up with my Menzies family or if they were two separate families.
