Photos, Genealogy and a Mystery

I have been working on some old photos, I found a whole packet of photos that needed to be sorted and marked with the year and the complete names.  Also found some more stuff for the grands memory binders. 

Found quite a few old graduation photos of Far Guy so the grands will each get one of those too.

Then I needed a small all day project.  My other baby brother asked for a copy of the family trees I have been working on.  I decided to work another leg or an arm…

Lucked out and found an old obit for my GG Grandmother Christina who died on June 25 1918.  Obituaries are a wealth of information…if it is correct.  So off I went to verify information …there were two typos in the obit (transcribers make errors too). 

Christina married name Kuhn maiden name unknown was born Feb 5 1847 in  Germany…wish I knew where??  Her husband must have been Fritz Kuhn born Dec 20 1843 and died April 13 1910 they are buried next to each other... and I found Census Records for them. They had at least 8 children in Germany:  Robert, Otto, William, Albert, Hadwig, Elsie, Frank and a unknown.   They immigrated in1884 with children 17 years - 2 years old. That must have been some trip.  Lena was born in Kansas in 1885. (Hadwig and Elsie were twins…many times twins did not live the births were difficult because usually one twin was breech…many times the babies and the Mothers all died.)

Well anyways I figured out where most of the children are or were.  Bits and pieces fit together nicely for me…a name is just a name but I have some old photos of these people that my Mother has shared with me.  Those old photos are all marked with names.

But I still have a mystery to solve:

A number of years ago my Mother gave me two CDV albums.  Mom cannot remember who they came from…just from family. One is from Germany and the other is clearly from the Glanders because Grandma Anderson is in that album and possibly even my Grandmother.  I will scan the photos and enlarge them so my Mother can look at them.

None of these photos are marked….even though the album had a spot to list the photos.

These two gals look like my Aunt Skip and my cousin Linda…distant relatives sometimes have the same features.

I believe that Christina may have kept the other album.  She was from Germany.  Hadwig and Elsie were born in either Wartenberg or Stuttgart depending on what reference you believe.  Those towns are 475 miles from Bremen and Bremerhaven (Bremen Harbour) where most of these photos were taken. Did Christina live in Bremen before she was married?  She was married sometime before 1870..possibly 1869 (first baby born in 1870)

I wish I had a photo of her.

The first photo in the album…usually the album owner puts their photo in the first page.   Could this be Christina?  I am not certain we will ever know.

There are many cousin look alikes in this album

These two look like Cousins Deb and Danny…most certainly relatives. 

There are four branches that this last album could come from.

Falnes…they were from Norway. Highly unlikely that she would have an album photographed in Germany.

Glander…German born but highly unlikely….but still a possibility.   GG Grandpa Johann must have had a wife…I have no idea what her name was.  He was born in 1827 and that makes his wife a tad old to have CDV’s from 1860-1870.

Drewes…The name was given to a young man either he was orphaned or he was not wanted by his family.  His name was Christian Hyer or Higher before he took the Drewes name at his confirmation in 1884 in Wolcottsville NY.  Not likely that he had a photo album. Was he really German? Who knows.

Kuhn…Christina born in Germany in 1847…the most plausible conclusion.

It will probably remain a mystery.  I will put a note in each album with my thoughts.

My brain is mush after a day of research, tomorrow I will transcrible all my notes into something readable. Please mark your old photos with whole names and the year…the four W’s is the best who, when, where and why.