When Headaches turn into Gold Mines

I've spent the last three days going through about ten pictures. It's taken me that long to find out just who was in each picture.

The only thing that was on the back of this picture was Julia Glover and Mother. Then a note: Mother's a sister of Grandma Emma Coffield.

Okay. Thanks. Seriously, could we be a teeny, tiny bit more cryptic? Who is mother? Without knowing who Mother is, how can I figure out who Julia Glover happens to be?

So, here I've been chasing down Great, Great Grandma Emma's siblings. One sister was a complete dead end. The first census she appears in she's listed as a female named Edwin. The next census is either Elvira or Almire. I couldn't find anything on her/him after he/she left their parent's home.

I trace out the other siblings. There's no Julia in their descendants that I can find. What the heck? Then I find a photograph and all that's on it is this label "Grandma Coffield's sister in Kalamazoo, Michigan."

Great. I can't find a sister that stayed in Kalamazoo, Michigan.

On a whim and grasping at straws I did a search on Ancestry.com. All I put in was the name Julia Glover and I listed her mother as last name only of Campbell. Pay dirt. The first item that popped up was a death record for Julia Glover. It gave me the name of her parents. Then I added her father as the spouse to Edwin/Almire/Elvira Campbell. More gold. I finally deduced the paper trail and found Elvira Campbell Smith's death record. It listed her parents as John Campbell and Ellen Train. Yes!!! A perfect match for Grandma Emma's sister. Not only that, Elvira lived in Kalamazoo, Michigan. I now had names for the sister and her husband in the picture that was taken in Kalamazoo, Michigan.

I know it hasn't taken long to type this out, but when trying to attribute the correct people in pictures it takes a very long time. I have had to go up and down the branches in the family tree. Filling in every person who fits, just to make sure I wasn't overlooking someone we have a picture of.

This picture didn't take as long because I recognized the clues that were left for me. By the way, the labels on them now are the labels I've attached after digging around to see whom is who.

This one is labeled on the back as: Grandma Emma Coffield, Aunt Helen Gardner, Aunt Emma Haas.

First I had to go find all of William Oren Coffield's siblings. William Oren is Emma's husband.

Once I did that, I needed to make sure Helen married a Gardner. She did. Yay. Emma wasn't so easy. She started out life being called Martha. Then she was called Emma. We find her with her mother in California as Emma Smith. There is no clue when following the hints that a Mr. Haas was every involved. The only clue was because the surname she used in 1918 when this picture was taken was Haas.

It took some research, but I learned which Mr. Haas she married. I found them in a census together, along with the daughter she had named Rubie Smith in the 1910 census. In the 1920 census her daughter was Ruby Haas and she was Emma Haas.

The only clue to even look for a Haas was this picture and the picture from the same time of Grandma Emma with Aunt Emma Haas and Cousin Ruby Haas.

Now I not only have the correct lineage for each picture, but I have documents backing up the lineage.

All I can do is say a HUGE thank you to my mother for leaving these trails on the back of pictures. Friday morning I thought I had a stash of pictures I'd never be able to use. Today my identified and verified pile is much larger than my unknown pile.

Though the picture isn't a clear picture, the one I'm most proud of being able to finally attribute to the correct people is the one of Grandma Coffield's sister in Kalamazoo, Michigan. If you'd asked me on Friday if I'd have it tagged on Monday, I would have told you I would be lucky if I ever got it tagged.

I can feel Mom smiling and Aunt Elvira sighing and softly saying, "thank you for finding me and my story".