Sepia saturday post, I broke 2 wrist bones last sat and had surgery tues, so I had a plate and pins put in and now am housebound healing, but still managing to do this one handed, not too shabby eh?
Bought this batch online, ad said
“Offered is a lot of 14 antique photos from an estate” and they were shipped to me from Bloomfield, NY in May 2011
The listing said the photos had writing on them but when they arrived I was sad to see only one photo had writing that said “Sons of Aunt Jennie Uncle Eddie – Earl and Warren”
I was so sad not a last name, state or photographer listed. Didnt know how far I could go trying to trace these people.
But a challenge is always good right? Since the photos that are labeled by a photographer have Rochester, New York, the seller said they came out of an estate, and were shipped to me from New York, I had a starting point! Yay!
So we have these two boys featured in our photo with the clues to trace, I hopped on a family search site, typed in NY and the first names of parents to find any listed in old census records, first names of spouses was just enough to find me a few matches, then if you can find that, you next search through the household listed in the census.
It didnt take too long to find a match!
Edward M. Kennell and his wife Jennie Kennell are in the 1910 census living in Gates, Monroe, NY and have the following children, EARL L.(a match), Warren (another match), Florence, Edna, Norman and the mother in law Margaret Spruce. So now I have 2 names from the family line to work with.
It appears Edward the father of these boys died in January of 1915. They resided at Brooks Ave, Gates
other photos in this group
2. We also have this cute little girl in the white dress
photographer J.W. Taylor 55 Clinton Ave. S Rochester,NY.
3. Solo portrait of the woman, scuffed up a little, perhaps the mother of the boy and girl in the following photo(similar facial features). Both of those photos were taken at the same studio “Smith-Curry Central Art Studio, Rochester, NY”
2 Cabinet Cards.
4. Man with mustache. Photographer R.H. Furman, 62 State St., Rochester, NY
5. Child. Says “Miller’s Old Stand” under the photo and photographer Welch, 96 state st., Rochester, NY
6. Blurred photo. Group of about 6 gentleman in suits and hats, building and old car in background.
7. There are 5 photos of the same child, no studio listed, 3 had holes punched and were tied together at one time to probably hang on the wall. The little girl doesnt look to happy to pose in any of the shots and in one she is without the coat and hood.
8. Woman in sleeve folder taken by Moser Studio, rochester, NY
9. Postcard photo of 2 girls in white dresses
savethephotos 
Brilliant detective work! The little girl is so cute! Is she from the same set of photos?
yes shes from the same photos scanning the rest now 🙂
I can’t imagine doing detective work like this – I keep hitting brick walls in similar searches in the UK. You have a find in these photos.
Bob, between my mother and I who works in genealogy we do quite a bit of hunting around through various online sources. I do pass up buying a lot of photos that are just unlabeled. I lucked out finding these names all related pretty quickly. My first search without a last name to start with, now would be great to find out who the others are. I stick pretty much to Us searching but my mom is experienced with other country searches, perhaps send info our way sometime to see if we can find anything your hunting for?
That’s a great find and some terrific research. I have done that one time as well (once is enough ha ha) digging through for the siblings. It does pay off but your eyes hurt from staring at the computer so long.
I am wondering whether there are free sites where you can do searches like that. I am not into genealogy, so I don’t want to use sites that are not free.
yes there is a free one right now familysearch.org and with my library card i can access heritage quest for free online, my mom has ancestry and a few other subsciptions
Great work on what looks like a fine family. I know the thrill of the hunt too, it’s like hooking a fish and hoping the line doesn’t break.
i’m impressed with the detective work and the results turn out to be quite interesting. sad though that these ended up in stranger’s hands, no offence to you. but no one in their family wanted them… breaks my heart.
nice job!!
🙂
HUGZ
no offense taken, sometimes I wonder if certain relatives were never given opportunity to have them. I figure if they are on the net eventually someone doing family research may come across them and be surprised they were saved, their are sites on my blogroll, deadfred and family photos where they can be uploaded to their database also.
i recently cleared out my father’s things and i will return certain mementos to his relatives. seems only fair to me.
🙂
HUGZ
Excellent research on a wonderful collection. I am intrigued by those small rectangular mounted photos of the girls on a couch, with holes punched in the corners and tied with ribbon. I wonder what that was for? I think those might have been taken with an early Kodak.
I remember going through boxes of paper at a local swap meet (talk about the thrill of the hunt!) when I saw a pair of stunning eyes staring at me from under the torn advertisements. They belonged to one of the loveliest ladies I had ever seen, ca. 1910. I couldn’t imagine a friend, or a relative, not wanting her picture on their shelf. But instead I purchased her, and she is now on my shelf.
Aubrey, youll have to share that image on your blog, would love to see her. 🙂 and I love digging through boxes so I totally understand that “thrill”.
I wrote about her a while ago.
Here she is!
http://thecaferoyal.wordpress.com/2010/03/09/who-is-she/
Thank-you for the photo of the rocket at El Dorado Park. I spent many an hour as a child in the 70’s climbing to the top of that very rocket! Brings back alot of great memories. Would love to see it again. Also, loved the capsule at Apollo Park. Thanks again!