battin – Sheetar.com

Sepia Saturday 411

By Sheetar 24 March 2018 19 March 2018

Our Sepia Saturday theme image this week featured a woman on her wedding day in 1928 in Canada. Well, fortunately, I have photos of a wedding in 1927 in Canada that line up pretty well! Above, we have Bessie Melita Creber on the left and her mother, Mary Jane (Battin) Creber on the right. Melita (or “Meta” for short, as it appears on the back of other photos) was born 1 August 1899 in Plymouth, Devon, England, daughter of Mary Jane Battin and John Samuel Creber. Her family, along with two siblings, left England for a new home in Canada in 1911. Meta is just a year younger than my great grandmother, and both their mothers were sisters who must’ve kept in touch over the years. On 18 Jun 1927, Meta married Alfred Norman Harris in Montreal, Canada at the Trinity Memorial Church. I’m not quite sure where these photos were taken, but it’s probably Alfred’s mother’s home in Montreal. The couple appears to later have lived in Peterborough, Ontario, Canada where both Meta and her husband passed away in 1985 and 1969 respectively.

This also lines up with a previous Sepia Saturday posting (#233) where I posted a larger group shot of the wedding party. It’s pretty great to find a match to the theme image so close in time and place, so I knew this had to be the one for this week!

Sepia Saturday

Sepia Saturday 327

By Sheetar 23 April 2016 22 April 2016

This week’s Sepia Saturday featured a prompt image of a young Queen Elizabeth II and her sister. I didn’t quite have anything like it, but I do have a photo of a pair of sisters! This is another photo from the great Red Velvet Victorian Photo Album I’ve posted about before. I’m pretty sure the two girls are Kathleen Mary Rowe and Olga Maria Rowe. It’s actually kind of funny – I had run a bunch of photos through Picasa in an attempt to do some facial recognition and see what turned up. This one matched to Kate Battin, but it was much too young of a photo to be her. Kate married a man named George Thomas Rowe and had two daughters, so I figured this must be them! The photo does match up with photos of the girls when they were older too. Also, Kate was the only sister who stayed in England, so all of those circumstances combine to make me pretty sure these are my girls!

The photo itself is pretty neat from the maroon colored board the photo is mounted on to the gold lettering naming the studio, H. Hayman & Son of Launceston. The girls’ mother grew up in Lawhitton which is pretty close. As far as a date goes, Kathleen was born in 1905 and Olga in 1903, so if they’re about 10 years old, the photo was probably taken in 1915 give or take a year or two. The girls are wearing identical dresses and even have similar short haircuts, something I find a little odd for 1915. Still, it’s a great photo of the two of them, and one I’m glad my great great grandmother, Jessie (Battin) Powis saved!

Sepia Saturday

Sepia Saturday 300

By Sheetar 27 October 2015 28 October 2015

I’m catching up on Sepia Saturday after having been on vacation, so bear with me! No theme this week which means it’s time to celebrate with something completely different! Usually the prompts for Sepia Saturday are informal, candid style photos, so I’m going with a more posed, formal photo with a very exact date this time. The handwriting is pretty clear, but the back of the photo reads

Eula F. Patrick’s Birthday Party
July 10th 1891
8 years old

Eula F Patrick was born Eula Frances Patrick on 10 July 1883. I haven’t been able to find out much about her mother – the only record I could find in my haste was a census from 1910 that says her mother was born in Massachusetts. Her father was John C Patrick (6 Jul 1848 – 25 Dec 1918) who was a travelling photographer with a base in Coalport, Pennsylvania, but he lived primarily in South Carolina. My family definitely utilized his photographic services over the years, and he apparently shared a photo of Eula’s 10th birthday with my great-great grandmother. John was also from England which may be why my great-great grandparents, also from England, patronized his services over other local photographers. Unfortunately I haven’t been able to find out much else about the Patrick Family. Eula married Julius Sinclair Burch, and John’s death certificate lists his mother’s surname as Hardesty.

In the photo above, I have no idea which child is Eula! The majority seem to be girls with one boy sitting in the front. In the back, there’s a child with a shaved head, but it’ shard to tell if the child is a boy or a girl based on clothing alone. I don’t think any of my great grandmother’s siblings are in the photo. My great great grandmother Jessie Battin married Alfred Powis on 19 Feb 1891, so it’s possible they became fast friends after having gotten to know eachother when John Patrick took their wedding photo. Now that I look at the two photos together, the background is the exact same background between the wedding photo and the birthday photo, so it’s possible Jessie and Alfred attended the party as adult guests! I can’t find any hard evidence to support that, but it would make sense given that they have a photo of the children at the party.

And with that wrapping up a birthday photo, I wish a very happy 300th birthday of sorts to Sepia Saturday! 300 prompts old and still going.

Sepia Saturday

Sepia Saturday 257: Lassoo, Dad and Son, Porch, Dog, Cowboy

By Sheetar 6 December 2014 4 December 2014

When I saw the prompt image a few weeks ago in the “coming soon” section on Sepia Saturday, I immediately thought of this photo. It’s been a bit of a thorn in my side as far as finding out who everyone is, but I’ve made some progress since the beginning. Here’s the rundown of who’s who (or who I think is who) with uncertain identifcations marked with a question mark.

Back, Left to right: Jessie (Battin) Powis, June (Croyle) Johnson?, Euphaime (Lamb) Miller, Marion Miller?, Oscar “Fritz” Powis, Laura (Johnson) Powis
Center, Left to right: Charles Miller and William Miller (twins, not sure who is who)
Front, Left to right: Alfred Powis, Louise Johnson?, Margaret Johnson?, Frank Johnson

As far as a date goes, Laura and Fritz were married in March of 1926, so I’d assume the Johnson family was over to visit on or around the time of their wedding. Dorothy Powis, their daughter, was born in December of 1926, and there’s no baby in the photo, nor does Laura look pregnant, so I’d have to pretty solidly put this in early to mid 1926. As far as my guesses go, I assumed June Johnson would be in the photo and she’s identified solely by process of elimination. I’d found another user’s photo of Euphaime Miller online, and the Miller twins appear over and over in other photos (my great grandma was clearly smitten with them and may have even taken this photo). I also guessed on Marion Miller since she’s standing near her mother and brothers. The two gals in the front are likely Laura’s two younger sisters, but it’s hard to tell who is who since they were born a year apart. The Millers are, as far as I can tell, not related at all, just neighbors.

A lot of the guesswork with the identifications takes into account the date and circumstances for the photo. Sometimes it’s easy to get frustrated when there are no labels and put a photo aside, but with a little critical thinking (Laura and Fritz were recently married, I know that’s Frank Johnson and the Miller Twins, so…) and a few lucky google/ancestry hits, things can be sorted out eventually. It definitely pays to revisit unidentified photos from time to time!

Sepia Saturday

Sepia Saturday 255: Children, train sets, crafts, silhouettist, dogs, family groups

By Sheetar 22 November 2014 18 November 2014

For many of the prompt images for Sepia Saturday, I see the image and immediately think of a photo that fits. This one was a little more difficult. I have no artists like Eveline Maydell in my tree (that I know of) and no photos that jumped out at me as having the same feel. The one below kind of came close to the feel of the photo, even though mine is a perfectly posed family photo. It’s a bit of a departure from the prompt image, but it’s still Sepia and Saturday!

The image is just about an 8×10, mounted on heavy boad with the photographer’s studio name embossed in gold, “Lipp Studio,” in Philadelphia, PA. The studio doesn’t exist anymore, but even without that hint, my great grandma Olga labelled the photo, “Mother’s sister, husband, Maurice & Gordon, Shugg Family.” Bessie looked much the same throughout her life, so it’s been pretty easy to pick out photos that she’s in anyway, and this is no exception. Bessie Battin was born in Lawhitton, Cornwall, England in 1870. After marrying Arnold Shugg in 1900, she came to the US with her husband and two children in 1911, almost 20 years after her sister (my 2nd great grandmother Jessie) arrived. They settled in Philadelphia, PA about a 5 hour drive away from where Jessie and her family lived. The sisters appeared to have kept in close contact, exchanging photos over the years, and Jessie’s daughter Olga even visited Philadelphia to see Maurice Shugg and his wife, Mildred Pruden. Marurice (the older boy in the photo) and Mildred never had children, but Gordon (the younger boy) had a child, Mary, who married Joseph Delphidio. I don’t have a lot of information on the descendants of Bessie and Arnold, but I apparently have a few fourth cousins floating around somewhere, related via Bessie.

As for the book Bessie is holding, all I can make out is that it says, “Record,” on the front and is very well worn. As far as a date goes, Gordon was born in 1905, and they arrived in 1911, so something like 1915 sounds about right. If you happen to stumble across this photo and are related to the Shugg family, please get in touch!

Genealogy

A House in Plympton

By Sheetar 23 December 2012 23 December 2012

A house in Plympton was all I knew about the photo above before I started doing some digging. The photo had fortunately been labelled with an address, so it at least gave me something to go on. First, I went to Google maps to see if I could look up the address and see if it’s still there on street view. 9 Moorland View, Plympton, UK, resolved to 9 Moorland Ave and the houses on the street all looked about the same, and beyond that it looks like the street had been reunumbered at one point. GREAT. One of the houses had a little plaque with “1899” above the door which helped me a little more. If the homes were built in 1899, it’s likely that the 1901 or 1911 England censuses would be able to tell me who those two children are on the front steps.

The 1901 census pretty much told me the address didn’t exist then. Okay, fine, on to 1911, which found the 9 Moorland Ave address via the address search on the census page. I went to ancestry.com to check out the census images and sure enough, 9 Moorland View, Plympton, UK was the home to Bessie (Battin) Shugg and her sons Maurice and Gordon Shugg in 1911. Bessie was the sister of my great-great grandmother, Jessie (Battin) Powis. This was likely taken around 1911, before they left for the USA. Bessie’s husband, Arnold Shugg, left for the USA in 1906, so he doesn’t show up on the 1911 census.

I’m counting this find as a small victory because I had a pretty large piece of information to go on – the address. Still, it’s neat to be able to link the photo to a house that still exists, and the people who lived there.

Genealogy

Harry Battin

By Sheetar 11 September 2012 9 September 2012

Going back to the Red Velvet Victorian Photo Album that I posted a while back, I think I finally made a wee little bit of headway on the identity of two of the photos. I decided to see if there were any military enthusiasts out on the web that dealt with the British army around about 1890. I was running under the assumption that the album was put together between about 1885 and 1900, based on some of the other photos that I can identify. Wouldn’t you know it, there’s a niche for everyone on the internet, and I ended up finding a site on Victorian Wars. My original posting and the replies are here in case you wanted to see. I was able to locate the service record for Harry Battin and it matched up perfectly with two of my photos which appear to be the same man! The folks in the forum and their knowledge is invaluable – they’ve helped me figure out these two and another photo and provided SO much information about the Army during that time. They’re really something special!

Harry Battin enlisted with the Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry on 1 October 1892. Harry is Jessie Battin’s brother, Jessie being my 2nd Great Grandmother. He lists his next of kin as his oldes brother, Alfred Battin. He was born in Lawhitton, Cornwall on 10 Oct 1871. On his record, it lists that he served in two campaigns, the North West Frontier of India 1897-98 and Tirah 1897-98. He was transferred to the reserve on 10 July 1903, and discharged on 30 September 1904. In 1905, he married Sarah Ann Maunder and had three children as of the 1911 census – Ivy, William Henry, and Alfred John. In the 1911 England Census, he lists his occupation as, “Horse man on Farm,” and is living back in Lawhitton. He died in 1951, but I don’t have much information on his death. The last name is spelled either Battin or Batten. On his service record, it’s Battin and on the 1911 census, it’s Batten.

This one was probably taken between 1892 and 1894. His service record lists him as home (meaning anywhere in the UK) during 1 Oct 1892 through 31 Jan 1894. I haven’t been able to find much on the photographer stamped on the back of the photo, but it’s on my to-do list.

This photo was probably taken later, as the folks on the forum suggested. He’s posing with his foreign service white helmet which would mean that the photo was probably taken in India. Taking that to his service record, he was in India from 1 Feb 1894 to 21 December 1900. It’s a broader time span, but he had enough time to get his Good Conduct Badge (the stripe on his left sleeve, near the cuff). There are no good identifying marks on the back to help me figure out who took the photo and when – the numbers are likely identifiers by the photographer to figure out who the photo belonged to (index numbers of some sort?).

Anyway, that’s my latest big discovery on the album identification process. Again, I wanted to express my thanks to the VictorianWars.com forum members for being SO helpful!

Genealogy

Nellie Eimer

By Sheetar 9 May 2012 9 May 2012

This one has been the big mystery running around in the back of my mind for the last few weeks. In the big trunk of photos that we found at Grandpa’s house, there are three photos with mention of Nellie Eimer who doesn’t appear to be related in any way to any branch of the family. I’m holding out hope that perhaps her mother is the link, but I haven’t yet been able to find her maiden name to confirm that. Do you have any of these names in your family tree? Please get in contact by leaving a comment!

The details:

“Nellie” Ellen Malden Howell was born 23 July 1868 in Dawley Bank, Shropshire, England and died 10 July 1930 in Carbondale, Lackawanna, Pennsylvania, USA. Nellie applied for a passport 1 April 1920 and listed the purpose of her passport as, “to visit relatives,” for the duration of four months. On this same document, she lists her arrival year as 1883. She married Frank Eimer 17 Jan 1891. She lived the rest of her life in Carbondale, Pennsylvania and never had children.
Frank Eimer was born in 1867 and died 3 Januray 1938. He was a baker in Carbondale. After Nellie died, he married Isabell Turnbull. His parents are Harry (1839) and Mary (1844-1875) Eimer.
William Howell, Nellie’s father, was born in England in 1843. He died 2 December 1920 in Carbondale, Pennsylvania. He lived with Nellie and Frank in Carbondale, PA until his death. I haven’t been able to find him on any English census, and there doesn’t appear to be record of his family living in England prior to the first time they show up on a census, the 1910 US census. Per the information he gave the census taker, he married Lizzie in 1864. His will lists his living relatives as, “Mrs. Ellen Malden Eimer daughter, Mrs. Sarah McCoy daughter, and Mrs. Elizabeth Stephens grand daughter.” Frank Eimer was named the executor of the will.
“Lizzie” Elizabeth ?, Nellie’s mother, was born 1843 and died 18 November 1913. I’m not 100% sure on the death date, but it seems to match up from the PA death record indicies. Lizzie appears on the 1910 US census and not on the 1920 census. I don’t know much about her other than this little bit of information.

The first photo is a photo postcard. The stamp area in the top right corner of the second photo gives me a date range of 1904-1918 (AZO with four triangles up). The back reads, “Mr & Mrs Wm Howell later on their 50th anniversary on our front porch,” and was likely written by Olga (Powis) Kitko, the front porch being in Beccaria, Clearfield, Pennsylvania. Below that, written later, is, “Nellie Eimers Mother & Father,” again, probably written by Olga. If the Howells married in 1864, that would give us 1914 for their 50th anniversary which isn’t possible if Lizzie died in 1913. I’m pretty comfortable saying this photo was taken in 1913. Olga would’ve been 13 at the time.

Another photo postcard, dating again between 1904-1918. Written on the back in Olga’s older handwriting is, “Aunt Nellie Eimer, Carbondale,” and printed is a Photographer’s Studio, “F. E. Allen Studio, 3d and Pine Sts., Williamsport, PA.” I haven’t been able to find the photographer’s name in any local directory, so I’ve got no lead on a date for this one. I’d definitely put it closer to the 1918 mark. This is where I get the “Aunt” title from though and why this has me so confused. I suppose it’s possible that Aunt was used to describe a close family friend – I know I grew up with a number of “Aunts” that I wasn’t related to, and the term was used symbolically for a person of importance to our family.

And the last photo – not a photo postcard. There are a few other photos of the same size (only about three inches high) that are marked with ’17 on the back – I’m taking this to mean that they were taken in 1917. This photo is labelled in Olga’s older handrwriting, “Nellie Eimers Father Carbondale Mom & Me.” If this was taken in 1917, Olga would’ve been 17 in this photo (she graduated high school, something rare for girls at that time). From Left to right, we have William Howell, Jessie (Battin) Powis, and Olga (Powis) Kitko. Lizzie is missing here which makes sense, because she passed away years before the photo was taken.
Sources:
L ackawanna Public Records – The search for Marriage licenses and Register of Wills was used to find Frank Eimer’s will, William Howell’s will and the marriage license for Frank and Nellie Eimer.
Playle’s Photo Postcard Dating – I go back to this resource often since it seems to be one of the most comprehensive databases for dating photo postcards
Pennsylvania Birth and Death indices – The indices are a great place to start for information. Records can be ordered for a fee, but sometimes just the index is enough to collect an exact date.