David George & Bessie Pearl Mulkins (nee Porter)

Last month I stumbled across this golden anniversary certificate kind of awkwardly laid out on a table at an antique store. It was only $4, and I knew I had to buy it.

David George Mulkins was born April 20, 1879 to Joab & Margaret Isabel Mulkins (nee Creighton) in Franklin County, Iowa. September 15, 1909 he married Bessie Pearl Porter - born July 1886 to John & Ellen Porter (nee Towslee). They had 4 children - Guyida Pearl, Floyd David, Edith Lucille and Claude Russell. David died June 18, 1966 and Bessie died September 19, 1971.

Photo by Melissa Lively Sherry via FindAGrave.com

For some reason I've had a bit of difficulty finding much online about the family. I think Guyida is the only child with living descendants. I'm about 75% sure I've found the snail mail address for one of Guyida's children so I'll send a note off to them and see if they're interested in the certificate. Hopefully they still live there. And don't think I'm some weird stalker person.

Rosemarie Amelia Helfrich

This diploma is the main reason I started this blog 5 months ago. A friend of my mom's had been holding onto this diploma for years after her husband had found it in the attic of an house he used to live in in Pittsburgh. They took it with them when they moved to Arizona in hopes that they could one day send it back to Rosemarie's family.

I had only just started buying antique store photos when my mom brought this diploma over and asked me to see if I could find a relative who wanted it.

Rosemarie Amelia Helfrich was born February 1, 1901 in Pennsylvannia to parents Charles W Helfrich and Catherine G Emerich. She had a younger brother Raymond (born 1904). Rosemarie died unmarried March 15, 1997 in Sherman Oaks, California.

Her brother did marry and have children. In fact, right off I found her great niece on Ancestry, but she didn't want the diploma. Months went by and I had kinda put Rosemarie on the back burner until last week I decided to see if anybody had saved anything from my Antique Store Photo tree out on Ancestry. Which is how I got in contact with Rosemarie's 1st cousin 1x removed! A descendant of Catherine's sister Amelia happily agreed to take the orphaned diploma in.

It got mailed off on Monday.

I'm really happy I was finally able to find somebody who wanted the diploma. And best part is.... she had a photo of Rosemarie so I finally got to see the face of the woman whose college diploma has been sitting in my living room for months.

Rosemarie in 1996.

I bet she was a great lady. :)

David & Luvisa Shanks (nee Fisher)

More photos I bought back in January while visiting in-laws in California. If I hadn't found Luvisa's photo, I probably would not have purchased David's because a later generation had only labeled the back as "Grandfather Shanks, age 21". Unhelpful. Also, Luvisa actually signed the back of hers which is pretty cool.

David Shanks was born December 23, 1832 in Crab Orchard, Kentucky to parents William Shanks and Rebecca Baughman. He married Luvisa Fisher - daughter of William Paterson Fisher and Mary Truesdale Pennington, born March 11, 1837 -  on September 22nd, 1853 in Lincoln County, Kentucky. They had 9 children - Judith, Rebecca, Ephraim, Mary, Susan, Kate, Nannie (Mamie?), Samuel and C Walter Shanks. David died August 5, 1882 and Luvisa died January 6, 1915.

Photos by Cathy & Thomas (David's) and Christina Bishop (Luvisa's) via FindAGrave.com

I didn't find much going backwards documentation-wise. I found a couple trees that traced David's line back to Thomas Owsley (1730-1796, Illinois). If that's true... then David's grand uncle was William Owsley, the 16th Governor of Kentucky... which is pretty cool. He even has his own Wikipedia page!

Going forwards, I've managed to follow their oldest daughter Judith's line down quite a ways... to 8 great great great grandchildren, who as far as I know are still alive.... and I'm just starting to work my way down Kate's line. With so many living descendants, I'm very hopeful that I can find somebody interested in owning these photos. :)

Frances Virginia Wilcoxen

Frances Virginia Wilcoxen

I almost didn't buy this photo. I walked past it a few times and then ultimately decided it was too adorable not to go back for.

I also put off researching it because the photo has no photographer's mark or hint of location. The only identification on the photo says "Frances Wilcoxen, Stella's daughter". Tonight I happened to pull up the back a bit to find that it was a postcard photograph and had started to be addressed to "Aunt Gussie". So I ran with that and blindly started researching the first Frances Wilcoxen I could find who had Stella listed as her mother. Many census records later... I found Aunt Gussie!

Frances Virginia Wilcoxen was born November 11, 1916 in Fayetteville, Arkansas to parents Clarence Alva Wilcoxen and Stella Adair Miller. She married John "Jack" Albert Weeks April 13, 1940. They had 2 children - Betty J and Roy J Weeks. Frances died May 20, 1995.

Graves of Frances V & Jack A Weeks

photos by k75evad via FindAGrave.com

Jack A. Weeks, 65, of 4218 E 62nd, died Thursday at Baptist Memorial Hospital. He was born in Osage County Missouri and had lived in the Kansas City area most of his life. He retired in 1969 after 15 years as a business agent for the International Brotherhood of Painters District Council No. 3. He leaves his wife, Mrs. Frances V. Weeks of the home; a son, Roy J Weeks, 5723 E 40th Terrace; a daughter, Mrs. Betty J Ruzick, 1519 N 45th Terrace, Kansas City, Kansas; two brothers, William P. Weeks, Golden, Mo., and Edward E. Weeks, Moline, Ill.; five sisters, Mrs. Cecil T. Stoneking, Westmont, Ill.; Mrs. Sara M. Mahany, 6300 Farrow, Kansas City, Kansas; Mrs Hazel E. Hunt and Mrs. Elsie A Olson, both of Golden, and Mrs. Elma L. Kendall, Dayton, Ohio, four grandchildren and a great-grandson. Service will be held at 1 p.m. Monday at the Floral Hills Chapel; burial in Floral Hill Cemetery. Friends may call from 6 to 8 p.m. Sunday at the chapel.


I've tracked her family down to her great great grandson... and while I can't seem to find an email address for him online, I have found his snail mail address (yay White Pages!). So I'll mail him a little note on Monday and see if he's interested in the photo or if somebody else in his family is the family historian.

The Barnes Family

So, after posting that last post about Frank & Nellie, I remembered that the same time I had purchased that photo (over a month ago)... I had also purchased a few other photos labeled Barnes.

Surprise! They're Nellie's relatives!

Harry, Joseph Alexander & Belle Barnes

So I haven't figured out where Belle fits in the tree yet... but Harry is Nellie's brother and Joseph is her half-brother. 

TO BE CONTINUED....

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!

An unexpected gift!

So this was at my front door today. Completely unexpected. 

It's a thank you gift from Jan Fobes Mowat's son... for finding, purchasing, researching and sending him the photos of his father. This is so thoughtful and sweet. Gives me the warm fuzzies. 

I've never actually heard of Harry & David products, but various Facebook friends assure me it's great stuff. They look delicious. Can't wait for my husband to get more fresh bread from his baker tennis buddy so I can break these bad boys open!