William Franklin & Ellen "Nellie" Altenburg (nee Barnes)

Frank & Nellie Altenburg

So this was a bit of an adventure last night. :) The back of this photo is actually labeled "Nettie & Frank Altenburg, Earnest's sister". The photographer's mark on the front is from Ithaca, Michigan. So of course, the first thing I did was search for a Francis Altenburg... or an Antoinette Altenburg in Michigan and came up empty. These people don't exist.

Plan B was to do a public tree search on Ancestry for Frank Altenburg and see if any of them had a wife whose name could be shortened to Nettie. Which is how I found William Franklin Altenburg and his wife Ellen - AKA Nellie. They lived in Newark, Michigan according to the 1910, 1920 and 1930 census records.

Despite having most of my extended family in Michigan, I don't actually know distances between Michigan cities. Luckily, Google Maps knows. Google knows everything.

You could probably spit into Ithaca from Newark if you had a good tail wind to help you (okay, maybe not... but they are REALLY close). This already seems pretty likely that William Franklin and Ellen are the people in this picture.

But of course I can't just stop the verification there. I had to find out if Ellen had a brother Earnest. According to Ellen's marriage record (and also the 1880 census), her parents were J.H. Barnes and Mary Harlow. I kinda cheated and went back to the public trees which had her father listed as John H and searched census records for John and Mary. Both the 1900 and 1910 censuses show John and Mary of having a son named Earnest (Ernie on 1900, Ernest on 1910).

The pièce de résistance... both Frank & Nellie are buried in Ithaca Cemetery. So I feel 99.9% confident that William Franklin Altenburg and Ellen "Nellie" Barnes are the two individuals in this photo and whoever labeled the back of it was a more distant relative of Frank's who thought his wife's name was Nettie instead of Nellie. Easy mistake to make if you weren't close.

Alas, Frank & Nellie did not have any children. Nellie died in 1935 and Frank remarried a woman who had 6 kids from a previous marriage.

Frank had a brother and sister (Warren & Sarah)... and Nellie had a crapton of siblings (Elizabeth, Lottie, Harry, Vern, Earnest, Leroy & Dewey)... so now it's just a matter of tracking down their descendants and reuniting this photo with them!