Researching the "Little Redheaded Girl"

The plan to researching the newest photo found by my cousin Ken is this: We have to date the photo by the dress of the woman, estimate her age and search for information about the photographer's studio shown in the lower left corner.  That's a long shot, but worth it to find an archived record of the sitting. No stone left unturned.  

To date the photo, I used Google Images , uploaded it by clicking on the camera icon, then searched for similar images and checked the details of those I found. I also googled a broader search for the period of time I believe the person in the photo sat for the portrait and click on the "images" link below the search box. Other factors I considered was the photo's finish, black/white or color, and the style of the dress using clues like the collar style. Of course the dress may not be new. That means the woman may be wearing her "Sunday Best" purchased several years before the sitting.  I'm satisfied this photo was taken in the 1940s. What I'm not certain of is if it was before or after WWII. 

So far, my search for a studio named "Foto Liko" in Lithuania was unsuccessful.  At least that is the name I interpreted for the studio.  Fast forward...our cousin in Lithuania notes the studio name as "Foto Zilio".  This studio name produced nothing in English either. I reached out to Lithuanian Genealogy, a Facebook group I'm a member of in hopes someone has a better way to search a business from the past and/or can read Lithuanian on the handful of sites produced from googling the names.

FOTO LIKO or FOTO ZILIO ?

This studio logo is on another identified photo we received last year from our cousin connection in Lithuania. Remember, this unnamed woman's original photo is in my cousin Ken's possession, so we have two photos from the same studio; one in Michigan with Ken and one in Lithuania.  That fact alone has Ken and I hopeful we can make a family connection of our unnamed woman in this photo to be that "little redheaded girl" from family lore (who did not travel to the USA) to the other photos from Foto Zilio.

A Positive Spin on Self-Isolation

Many weeks have passed since my last post. No excuse, only a reason. With the new norm of self isolation during the COVID-19 scare, I find I'm indulging in deep research on several branches, well, because I can.  That deep dive kept me from coming up for air to post a tidbit or two during March 2020.

I wondered how my other family genealogists were spending their time, other than learning how to wash their hands and find the elusive TP in the stores. It could be they had too much time on their hands and lost the drive to get it done, or, like me, each record that solved one question begat another, a challenge I could not ignore. In Michigan, my 2nd cousin Ken's project was digitizing old family pictures.

Shortly after I sent birthday wishes via social media, he reached out to me with a catch-up email to tell me about his picture project and a new find. A black and white portrait of a woman between 50-60 years of age, no one he recognized, was tucked behind another picture in the album.  On the back was a short note written in cursive Lithuanian. The obvious first step is to translate the back.

There are a few ways to do that. Ken reached out to a Lithuanian distant cousin of ours and I posted the picture of the photo on a social media group page for Lithuanian genealogists hoping to get a speedier answer. As it turned out, my post was still warm when I got a reply and Ken's email to Lithuania came back soon after. And now unraveling the mystery of the Lithuanian woman begins. 

Unknown Lithuanian Woman

Translation below

The translation is:
"For a long remembrance. this photo (shows me) of the current age. Your sister Julia (Julija, Julė)"

A Jamitis family story about a "little redheaded girl" told to Ken in part suggests our great grandmother, Anna (Ambrazevičiūte) Jamitis, left a sister behind in Lithuania. There's also a possibility Anna left behind a daughter, perhaps conceived by mistreatment from a soldier occupying Lithuania during the regime struggles in the late 19th century. Both the story and the picture are about a female; we are assuming these items are connected. 

In my next post, I will lay out the thought process of researching the photo and story. Stay tuned...

Unanswered Questions

The thing about researching is how easily the objective can be derailed. Well, at least in my genealogy research. How I get distracted I can't say specifically, but yesterday I found myself on my son's branch of his family after seeing an intriguing news article on Newspapers.com.  The last several years of his great grandfather's life have some unanswered questions.

According to a "Special to the Inquirer" news article in the Philadelphia Inquirer, Fred Wegelin disappeared from his New Jersey home in November 1914 without mentioning anything to his wife, Minnie. After several days of absence, Minnie reported Fred missing.

I knew the Wegelin family line had ties to Birmingham Alabama, so my research went in that direction on a hunch. Narrowing down the search for Fred to Alabama newspapers and a time period starting from 1914, I hoped to find an article with the answer to this mystery. What I found was a vague item reporting his death in December 1917.

My next step was to find the death certificate. This record type shows the cause of death among other vital dates and information. Unfortunately, Alabama has not digitized their death records for online research. A copy can be obtained from the state for a fee or looked up in person at the repository where it's archived. The index information (the county of record, book volume number and page number) for Fred's record was found online and is a great help requesting the death certificate in person. The death being indexed also confirms the date and event is true, in light of the vague blurb in the newspaper.

Fred's will and his wife Minnie's petition of probate (to have the will authenticated) were found online.  This online transcript is of the court proceeding and Fred's will, not the original will document. According to the transcribed details of the will, it was written by Fred and witnessed by two gentlemen on March 3, 1917 in Birmingham Alabama, nine months prior to his death.

It's unclear to me if Minnie had to travel to Birmingham to petition in person or have a lawyer handle the process. A sentence in the petition transcript suggests to me she had the will in her possession and presented it to the Alabama authorities, but the transcription does not state she signed any document or was present at court as far as I can tell. The two witnesses signed a short statement confirming the will was the one they signed as witnesses in March 1917 and the judge officially sealed it.

The unanswered questions remaining are: Why did Fred leave his family without notice in 1914? Did Minnie have the original will? If so, did Fred return to New Jersey to give her the will or did he mail it to her? Where was he between November 1914 and the writing of the will in Alabama? Was Fred in some trouble during this period making him fear for his life and write a will at the age of 37? Was his death an accident (and what kind of accident) or was he killed?

"Update" ... After rereading the transcription of Minnie's petition closely, I find that she signed the petition in front of a Notary Public in Atlantic County New Jersey, close to her Egg Harbor City home. The NP mailed the sworn statement to Jefferson County Alabama to start probate of her deceased husband's will.

Archive Research Day

First let me say this trip was more fun than I anticipated!  Meeting my 3rd cousins from Michigan after being research partners for a year was the highlight.  We all had the same drive to learn as much as we could and hopefully find some missing links. Researching with family on the same project is refreshing.

The Schuylkill County courthouse archive department is in the basement, not surprisingly, with a designated area for researchers...two large tables with comfortable chairs surrounded by shelves of index binders, first by category, then alphabetically by date and sometimes gender. Those books hold the information needed to find the records in the record room.  The department was small and cozy, nothing like the industrial, high-ceiling, uninviting room I envisioned.

Ken and Ron ran a smooth tag-team. Ken announced the ancestor and what records were needed as Ron scoured the indexes for the ancestor's name. Sound simple? Not with 8 to 10 different Lithuanian surname spellings and given names repeated through the generations. Josephs, Peters, Annas, Marys over and over. This made Ron pause and recall what our god-fearing grandparents vocalized when something was "unbelievable" ....
"Jesus, Mary and Joseph!"

So there they were with open index binders and post-it notes keeping the research under control. The post-it notes were handed to our helpful assistant Abby, sending her into the depths of the record room to return with whatever we required.  The record books were huge and would fit right in the "Alice in Wonderland" world.

Ron, Kris and Ken

I assisted the guys using my prepared research on our shared family branch.  I jumped in where needed and took phone pics of what we found. Some records needed to be discussed to determine we had the correct family member. A few made us pause when we realized we were looking at our ancestor's own handwriting.

As my cousins "branched off" to another area of their family research, I had time to run down several records for my German branch before they locked the doors. The three of us were the only researches in-house and we made a day of it from open to close!

Fast forward to the aftermath...Our archive dive did not expose new information for our Mystery Man, Peter Jamitis, however, that's not to say there aren't hints to be found in the many new record images we have to reread and analyze. I'm ready to dig in!

The Mystery Man

Most of my research in the last 6 months has been reexamining my family tree information for my Great Grandfather Peter Jamitis in my paternal line. Peter was Lithuanian, though at times the historic records show him as Russian, Russian-Polander, Russian-Lithuanian and Prussian.  I've determined this is due to the regime his birth home was ruled by when he answered the question of nationality on census forms, draft records or his marriage application. Lithuania had several border changes during his lifetime.

There's also issues with surname spellings.  I've seen Zamitis, Zemaitis, Gemaitis, Zamitus, Zimits...you get the idea. Jamitis is the only spelling I knew until I started my family tree. This issue alone made the research process lengthy within the United States record repositories.  Image this Lithuanian answering port authority's questions to board the ship for America and a census-taker's ears hearing this new language probably for the first time.  Phonetic spelling of surnames was most likely the option taken in this instance.

Peter is a mystery from the time he was born in 1870 until I find him in Pennsylvania in 1899 applying for a license to marry Anna Ambrosavage, also a Lithuanian who immigrated to the United States. And don't let Anna's surname spelling comfort you... that's another post.

I see him with Anna and their first born in the 1900 census and the next three censuses through 1930. Each census adds more children and more conflicting information, mainly event dates. Naturalization records have escaped me even with 1903 recorded as the year this citizenship event happened.  I was so hoping to find the petition or the application for Peter for there is much to mine from these records, opening the gate to finding his place of birth in Eastern Europe.

My next step is to visit the courthouse and search for wills, deeds, land records and the like. It will be my first time researching physical records and it's a fact that visits to your ancestor's county seat can unblock the the wall when online indexes and documents are fruitless.  Perhaps starting with the physical records was the best plan for Peter.  In hindsight, yes. But the enormous amount of online records available to genealogists the last several years is hard to resist from the comfort of your own home.