Ancestry.com index to the 1950 US Census

The first of April the US National Archives (NARA) released the 1950 census using handwriting recognition software.  1950 Census - Home | 1950 Census (archives.gov)

I really wasn't expecting a lot and thought I'd have to wait until the human indexers were finished before really diving into it. To my surprise I had a lot of luck finding most of the people I was looking for. My grandparents, my parents, some of their neighbors and friends, aunts and uncles etc.

There was only one person I was unable to locate in 1950. My maternal great grandmother Roxie Anna Hughes Webb 1876-1961. Various records have her name as Roxy Ann, Roxie, Roxana, Anna and I'm sure there are other variants. 

Ancestry.com also had its own handwriting recognition software that was supposed to come out later in the summer.  Ancestry® to Apply Handwriting Recognition Artificial Intelligence to Create a Searchable Index of the 1950 U.S. Census | Ancestry Corporate

Instead, Ancestry.com released their version yesterday because as I was looking someone else up, a link to a 1950 census record came up in the results. I re-ran my search for Roxie Anna and she instantly came up. Her name was listed as Rox Anna. She was also listed as a lodger in the household of Sherman Moore and family. I'm not sure if this family is somehow related to her or not. 

In 1940 she was living with her daughter Sybil Webb Reasoner and her family. Both households were in Russellville, Pope County, Arkansas. 

I can't make out the street name of the Reasoner household in the 1950 census but they still were in Russellville so I can't tell how far they are from each other.

It's very cool how good the handwriting recognition program is working. It will be interesting to see how much better it will be when the 1960 census is released in 10 years.

Photo Friday

Here is a picture of my grandmother Ruth Eileen McFadden Webb (1905-1985) with my mother and aunt from about 1940-1941. They are standing in front of Bittners Department Store in Sunbury Pennsylvania. Not sure who took the photo. It could have been her mother Elizabeth 'Lizzie' Christine Neuland McFadden (1866-1949). My grandfather Clyde Lee Webb (1898-1987) was a salesman and was often traveling.

Not sure who the boy photobombing the picture is. 

Here is an image from Google Maps of the same area from October 2021. 

 

Below is an image from the local newspaper probably close to the time they visited the location. Definitely need to visit when I take my road-trip to Pennsylvania and the area.

The Sunbury Daily Item, Sunbury, Pennsylvania. Wednesday, May 29, 1940. Second Page. 

 

According to the 1940 US Census, they were living with her mother Elizabeth in Baltimore. 

Manus Ferry (1831-1883) burial place

 According to the death record from the Diocese of Steubenville in Steubenville, Ohio Manus Ferry died on 12 July 1883. 

He was buried at Saint Mary's Catholic Cemetery in Pine Grove, Lawrence County, Ohio.

On 7 October 1905 his wife Margaret McFadden Ferry (1845-1905) died in Newark, Licking County, Ohio. She is buried in Cedar Hill Cemetery in Newark, Ohio in an unmarked grave.

According to her file at the Cedar Hill office on the 22 November 1907 the body of Manus was relocated and buried next to Margaret. His headstone is still, as far as I know at St. Mary's Cemetery.

Wonder why the headstone was not relocated. Perhaps too expensive?

Charles Hempstead, Photographer, Newark, Ohio-early 1900s

 

                                       Newark, Ohio, newspaper The Advocate 3 Jan 1905 page 5.

I was researching old Newspapers for the name Schildhauer in Ohio and came across this article.

                                                                    Handsome Pictures

                                                    

        Mr. Charles Hempstead, the West Main Street Photographer

        on Monday took several fine group pictures of General Foreman

        of the Baltimore & Ohio shops H.L. Needam, and the foreman of 

        various departments under him.

It also goes on to mention H.L. Schildhauer and his machine shop. So far, I have been unable to locate any information on Hempstead and his photography business. Hopefully some of his photographs are out there and I'm able to track them down. 

Newark, Ohio, newspaper The Newark Advocate 23 Mar 1912

This states that J. A. Kidwell purchased the East Main Street studio from Charles Hempstead the West Main Street photographer.

What happened to Charles McFadden

 The McFadden family is giving me plenty of mysteries to look into. My great grandfather, Dennis McFadden (1842-1924) came from Ireland as best I can estimate sometime in the 1850s and settled in Ohio.

The 1860 US census for Clinton Township, Vinton County, Ohio shows him in the likely home of his parents Edward and Alice McFadden. Also in the home is his brother John and two boarders.

In the 1870 US census Edward and Alice are still in Vinton County with a boarder listed on the following page. John was killed in the Civil War at the battle of Mission Ridge in Tennessee on Nov 25, 1863.

Dennis has not been located in the 1870 census. 

John's parents applied for his Civil War pension. In her statement, Margaret Ferry states that she is the daughter of Edward and Alice McFadden and is the wife of Manus Ferry. 

She says that she is the their only daughter and that she has three brothers. 

   Charles, John & Dennis

 – Charles went to Utah

before the war of 1861, not-heard from

 him for over 12 years & we suppose he

is dead. Dennis is living but away

from home since before the war of 1861.

and did not since contribute any

support to Father and Mother –John

was a good boy & man to provide for

and help Father and Mother, he contributed 

to their support by his labor

and earnings before the war. and lived

with them until he enlisted into the 

service in which he was killed 

Alice McFadden also made a statement, and it is virtually the same as Margaret's except she added regarding Charles that she has not heard from him since he left when he was with army going to Utah. 

It sounds like Charles may have either just left  or he enlisted in the army and his unit headed off to Utah in 1861.  

So far, I have not found a good candidate for either option.

______________________________

Compiled service record, John McFadden, Pvt., Co. K, 36th Reg, Ohio 2; Carded Records, Volunteer Organizations, Civil War; Records of the adjutant General’s Office, 1780s-1917, Record Group 94; National Archives, Washington, D.C.

My Heritage animated photos

 MyHeritage.com has recently added a new option that allows you to animate 

the faces of people in your photographs.

This is a picture from 1922 of my maternal grandmother Ruth McFadden Webb 

(1905-1985) and an unknown friend. My grandmother is in the hat.

Click here for the link.

Click here for unknown woman.

This is an unknown person found among my grandmother's photos.

Click here.

Here is an unknown couple.

Click here and here.

Who is Adolph Zink?

I can't believe it's been so long since I've posted something. It has been a heck of a year or so.  Anyway, I kind of fell down a rabbit hole this weekend so I thought I'd share it here.

It is a Saturday night so I'm staying in, avoiding people. Also, apparently there is a pandemic or something. So I'm relaxing by watching obscure, little seen silent movies from the late 1800s to the early 1900s. 

One of the films is called Adolph Zink (1903?) and is 11 minutes. It features a little person vaudeville performer going through several costume changes both as male and female characters. We never get to see his stage performance.

I've been trying to find out more about him, but so far no luck. There are a lot of Adolph Zinks and my next step is to separate them. This may turn out to be a bigger project than I first thought.

Memorial Day - John McFadden (1842-1863)

Memorial Day - A day for honoring and mourning people who died while serving in the United States military. 

John McFadden, my great grand uncle, was about twenty one when he died at the battle of Mission Ridge in Tennessee on November 26, 1863.[1]

John served with the Ohio Infantry, 36th Regiment, Company K.

Not much is known about him other than from the testimonies of his parents, sister, brother-in-law and other acquaintances in his Civil War pension file submitted by his parents, Edward McFadden and Alice Collum.

 Some things learned about John in the pension application:

• According to Patrick Ward, private, 36th Regiment, Company F, John was found with a bullet wound in is chest, still breathing. As they took him down in the ambulance (stretcher) he died.[2]
• The testimony in the pension application mentions a photograph of John in his uniform which was unfortunately destroyed in a fire that destroyed the McFadden home.

---

[1]Parent’s pension application no. 218859; service of John McFadden (Pvt., Co. K, 36^th Ohio Infantry, Civil War); Case Files of Approved Pension Applications…, 1874-1886; Civil War and Later Pension Files; Department of Veterans Affairs, Record Group 15; National Archives, Washington D.C.

 [2]

 The Official Roster of the Soldiers of the State of Ohio in the War of the Rebellion 1861-1866.  http://www.archive.org/stream/ohiowarroster03howerich#page/672/mode/2up

Mystery Photo for whatever day this is

 As we're locked down, I have been able to make good progress on my family history photos and documents scanning project. Of course, the more I get digitized the more mysteries seem to pop up.

Below, is a mystery photo of a couple. Looking at it, I'm inclined to say it is from the 1920s to the 1930s. On the back of the photo is written Dennis. I have a Dennis McFadden (1847-1924) in my line, but about when this photo was taken he'd have been an old man.

Why would it have been so hard to add a last name or a name for the woman?

DeOldify your photos

MyHeritage.com has released a program that colorizes old photos. 

You can sign in for free and test out the program. It looks like after you do a few it requests you sign up for a paid membership.

The results are very cool though not perfect, but I'm sure it will improve in the future. In the meantime, it will be fun to play around with.

As soon as I finish organizing and digitizing my photo collection, I'll probably sign up for an account and start creating colorized versions of all my photos.

June 1922. Possibly my grandmother Ruth McFadden Webb (1905-1985) and an unknown girl

An unknown family and location

An unknown woman sitting on a car with a man visible through the window

Old cylinder recordings and my grandfather

The UCSB Library invites you to discover and listen to its online archive of cylinder recordings; donate to help the collection grow; and learn about how these sounds and songs create an audio history of American culture.

The UC Santa Barbara Library has a digital library of a lot of old cylinder recording from the late 1800s to early 1900s.

They have all types of recordings from music, speeches, sermons, vaudeville etc. I love listening to them and can spend hours just browsing the collection.

Then I came upon this recording:  He'd have to get out and get under (to fix up his automobile).

I then recalled an old photo of my Grandfather, Clyde Lee Webb from circa 1915.

 Clyde is the man under the car. The other person is unknown.

According to the site the song was released about 1913, so it may have been fairly popular back then. I wonder if the writing was a reference to the song. It's seems quite likely. Putting a pop-culture reference on a photo is something I would definitely do.

It's kind of  strange. When I knew my grandfather he impatient and seemed humorless and not much fun to be around. Something as simple as this all these years later kind of makes me feel a little closer to him.

Ireland Trip - Last Day and back to Dublin Airport

For my final day, I was hoping to squeeze in a few more interesting sites.

The Glenveagh Castle at Glenveagh National Park.

  

I was there early for the tour, so I was able to walk along the grounds and part of the park for a while. It is an interesting place, and since October is the off season it was quiet and you could just look and reflect. 

Next was the Dunfanaghy Workhouse. 

  

The tour tells of a woman Hannah who spent some time in the workhouse during the famine years. This was around the same period my great great grandparents and family left and settled in the US.

My flight was for the next morning but due to poor planning I didn't realize I'd need to be on the road at by 3 AM to get to the airport. Besides, I would rather be able to see the countryside and any interesting places to stop rather than drive in the dark so I decided to leave that afternoon.

Not long after heading out I came to I think the village of Dunfanaghy  With it being cold and rainy the beach was deserted. 

Along the way I saw many ruins like this. Unfortunately, most I couldn't see a way to stop and explore. This was one of the larger ones and from the window to the left on the first picture, I'm guessing it was a church. 

It would be fun to research these buildings, find out how old they were and who lived in and around the area back then, but that's a project for another day.

There were a lot of other things I wanted to do but didn't have the time. I'll definitely need to come back someday.

Ireland Trip - Day 11

There were quite a few things I wanted to see and do in the area, unfortunately I wasn't able to get to all of them. Many of these historical markers and objects were out of the way on non-paved roads or trails. It had rained almost every day of my trip so far, I decided not to go after dark since I didn't see any lights at most of the places and didn't want to get my car stuck anywhere with poor phone reception.

My first stop was the Coughaneely Stone.

The legend is that this is the stone on which Balor, the one-eyed mythical king of nearby Tory Island, decapitated the local chieftain, Mac Aneely.

Next I stopped by the ruins of the late medieval Tullaghobegley Church and graveyard.

The birthplace of Saint Columba 521-597

As I did this I wandered around and just took in the scenery. The pictures really don't do it justice.

I really wanted to hike or bike this mountain and area.

I'll just need to come back someday.