Out of the Attic: A Photo Album Detective Story
Veteran members of the Society will remember a time when transcriptions of family records – bible pages, newspaper articles, obituaries, funeral programs, commencement programs, and so on – were regularly found in the pages of our publications. We’d like to revive this practice and start featuring family records in our monthly eNews. We need your help to accomplish this.
Rummage around in your genealogical “attic” for unique family records. Then email us a transcription. Include an introductory paragraph to explain what the record is and where you found it. We’ll do the rest.
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Out of the Attic: A Photo Album Detective Story
by Steven Erickson
My mother bought two antique photo albums at the Canton, Texas flea market around 1986. They were decorations for her guest room, and they served that purpose until we sold the house in 2013.
The album pictured here was particularly intriguing. It was ornate, worn but beautiful, with a working music box in its base. It held 28 photos of strangers. When I looked on the back of photos, only a few had some names, and only first names, like “George and Mag.” Then an obituary fell out from between the pages. Was it related to these people, or just another random item?
The obituary was for Mrs. M. E. Rogers who lived from 1854 to 1904. It listed surviving relatives, including a brother named Will Brasher (thus revealing the maiden name of the deceased) and a sister named Maggie Chapman. So there was Mag. Some online sleuthing revealed Maggie’s husband was named George. George and Mag.
After years occasional sleuthing, I have assembled a tree with 635 relatives for this family, and also have encountered Martha E “Kate” Rogers’ 3rd-great-granddaughter, who is also a genealogy researcher. She has been helping me identify her relatives from this album. Upon seeing the family portrait of 6 people shown below, she instantly recognized the woman at top left (now known to be Ethel Lee Rogers Haden) as a relative. “That’s the Haden look. My dad had that look.” And indeed when I later saw a photo of her dad as a teenager with the tilted head and intense stare, I understood what she meant. It’s amazing what we inherit.
After a LOT of sleuthing by both of us in 2020 and 2021, there are only 9 photos still unidentified. But Kate has now seen photos of her Great-Great-Great-Grandparents and Great-Great-Grandparents (and many aunts, uncles and cousins) that had almost been lost.
Interestingly, I discovered that my wife is related, after a fashion, to the family in this randomly acquired album. Mrs. M. E. “Kate” Rogers had a nephew, whose wife is first cousin once removed to the husband of my wife’s 2nd cousin twice removed. Basically, my wife is connected to this family through just 2 marriages.
Ultimately, we are all connected.
I recently sent this album and photos to my friend, Kate Rogers’ 3rd-great-granddaughter. It was a fun puzzle, but it was time for these folks to go back to their family.
