(Almost) Wordless Wednesday ~ Mount Royal Boulevard

Hampton Township, Pennsylvania is north of Pittsburgh. My grandparents moved out of Pittsburgh and to their home on Mount Royal Boulevard in Hampton Township in 1940 (after the 1940 US Census).

After my last post, a cousin asked if I have photos of this house. Yes, I do.

The house on the left-hand side was my grandparents' home. I don't have a date for this photo, but I'm guessing the 1940's. Update (September 5, 2017): Based on the size of the fir tree at the right front corner of the house, this was taken in the early 1940s. The building in the middle is a garage with two bays facing front, one bay below and two rooms and a bathroom on the second floor. The very small building behind the house is a children's playhouse, still there today.

According to my mother, there was a gate at the end of the driveway. Here is a photo from September 1940 of her and her sisters in front of the gate. They had probably just moved in.

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun ~ Where Were They 100 Years Ago?

Randy Seaver's Genea-Musings Saturday Night Genealogy Fun asks us to do the following:

1)  Determine where your ancestral families were on 1 January 1913 - 100 years ago.

2)  List them, their family members, their birth years, and their residence location (as close as possible).  Do you have a photograph of their residence from about that time, and does the residence still exist?

3)  Tell us all about it.

My father's side:

My great-great-grandmother, Esther Abigail (Whitman) Pyle (born 1828), was living at 200 West 57th Street, New York City. She was a widow and lived with one servant (in the 1910 census). I don't have a photograph of this apartment building and I don't know if the building that still stands there is the one she was living in 100 years ago.

Aerial photo of Hurstmont

My great grandmother, Frances Adelaide (McAlpin) Pyle (born 1860), is not listed in the New York City Directory, but I know that when her husband, James Tolman Pyle, died less than a year before, they were living at 673 5th Avenue, New York City. In 1913, she was living at either New York City and / or Morristown, New Jersey (see my early Hurstmont post for current photo). See Review Old Photos for an aerial photo of Hurstmont from what I am guessing is the 1930's. I do have several other photos of the home in New Jersey.

My grandfather, Charles McAlpin Pyle (born 1893) would likely have been living with his mother in New York City or Morristown, New Jersey.

My great-grandparents, Charles Chapin Adsit (born 1853) and his wife, Mary Bowman (Ashby) Adsit (born 1863 or 1866) were living at Ritchie Court, Chicago, Illinois. The household included their son, Charles, Jr. (b. 1892) and my grandmother, Elizabeth (b. 1897). If I looked, I bet I have a few photos of this home, as I know I have photos of Charles, Jr. as a baby in a carriage outside the home. I don't know if this address still exists in Chicago; there is a North Ritchie Court that has older-looking homes on it (see Google Maps) but the numbers are different than in 1913.

My mother's side:

Calais, Maine - current photo

My great-great-grandmother, very recently widowed Sarah (Lowell) Copeland (born 1833), lived on Main Street, in Calais, Maine. I do have a couple of old photos of this home. This home still stands and a Find A Grave volunteer from the area shared a current photo of the home with me.

My great-grandparents, Lowell Copeland (born 1862) and Ethel May (Greeley) Copeland (born 1875), were living on Maple Street, New Trier Township, Illinois. Included in this household were my great-great-grandfather, Samuel Sewall Greeley (born 1824), as well as my grandfather, Lowell Townsend Copeland (b. 1900) and his two sisters. I do have some old photos that include this house.

My great-grandparents, Percy Earle Hunter (b. 1873) and Marguerite (Lysle) Hunter (b. 1876) were living at 3623 Perrysville Avenue in the 1910 census, but were living at 5629 Elgin Avenue in November 1913, when their eldest daughter died (per her death certificate). My grandmother, Helen Lysle Hunter (born 1907) would have lived there with her four older sisters. See a photograph of what I believe is the Perrysville home at Hunter Family Home. The home at Perrysville Avenue is no longer there, based on my search of Google Maps. Also using Google Maps, it looks like there is a home at 5629 Elgin Street, but I don't know if it's the same home.

Interestingly, 100 years ago, none of my ancestors lived in Massachusetts, yet this is where my immediate family has lived for over 50 years.

Thanks Randy for a fun Saturday Night!

Thomas Jefferson Copeland, 1801-1877

Thomas Jefferson Copeland is my 3rd great grandfather. I am descended from the oldest of his four children, Henry Clay Copeland, whom I wrote about last year. As I noted at the time, much of my knowledge of the Copeland Family history is from The Copeland Family: A Copeland Genealogy by Warren Turner Copeland, published by The Tuttle Publishing Company, Rutland, Vt. (1937). This is where I find that he was born on April 26, 1801, in Boston, Massachusetts, to Nathaniel Copeland and Mary (Page) Copeland.

He married Julia Elvira Townsend on October 10, 1830, in Norridgewock, Maine.

I first find Thomas J. Copeland in the 1840 U.S. Census in Norridgewock, Somerset County, Maine.

Detail from 1840 US Census, Norridgewock, Somerset, Maine; Roll: 151; Page: 131.

Line 18 has Thomas J. Copeland with a household of six. His household indicates that he is employed in "Manufacture and Trade."
Line 21 has Amos Townesend with a household of 7. Amos is Julia's father and therefore, the father-in-law of Thomas. His household indicates that he is employed in "Learned Professions and Engineers." (He was a physician.)

According to the Copeland genealogy, the family moved to Calais, Washington County, Maine, about 1843, where he lived for the rest of his life.

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Tuesday's Tip ~ Review Your Old Photos

Today's tip is to periodically review your old photographs and always turn the photo over to see what may be written on the other side. Perhaps you'll find a photograph that came to you from one ancestor and it pertains to another ancestor.

In reviewing photographs for a Christmas gift project, I came across a photo that had come to me from my father's mother, Libby (Elizabeth Adsit (Pyle) Rust, 1897-1983).

My husband had originally taken digital pictures of this group of photos five years ago, before I got my portable Flip-Pal scanner. This was also before I had learned very much about my grandfather's childhood home. (See my first blog post.) I had filed this photo in the notebook where I stored other Adsit photos, not realizing what was written on the back. On the back was the following notation.

Hurstmont

I believe this is Libby's handwriting indicating that this is Hurstmont, where her first husband, my paternal grandfather, Charles McAlpin Pyle (1893-1966) grew up.

Perhaps someone knows the date of this photo - if so, please let me know in the comments section below.

January 5, 2013 Update: I emailed this to an acquaintance at the Harding Township Historical Society and she was able to tell me that the photo was taken before 1940 because that year it appeared in a sales brochure for the house. I would still love to narrow down the date of the photo.

By the way, my Christmas gift project was to create a calendar for each of my brothers and my mother and instead of each month showing a photograph of my boys (which we've done for many years), each month had one or two photographs of ancestors, or in this case, an ancestral home.

Genealogy New Year Resolutions ~ Update

Last New Year's Day, I posted some New Year's Resolutions. Just for fun, let's see how I did. My comments are in red.

1. Post to this blog at least twice a week (and to my other blog, A Jewish Genealogy Journey, at least once a week).  With 80 posts for the 2012 year, I didn't quite make it on this resolution for this blog. I like to spend a good bit of time thinking through my posts, and some weeks, I just don't have the time to be as thoughtful about my posts as I would like, so I don't post. However, I did better on A Jewish Genealogy Journey with 48 posts during 2012.
2. Continue to organize (and scan) my old photographs and family memorabilia, of which I seem to have quite a bit. In addition to organizing the old photographs, I need to consult with my mother about identifying people in some of these photos.  I didn't do a good job on this resolution [Mother - we need to schedule a time to do this!], but I did scan quite a few photos at my parents-in-law's home while visiting, which was a good thing, as they were affected by Hurricane Sandy in October, and I'm not sure if the physical photos I scanned survived the storm, but I have digital copies!
3. Work on finding the parents of Susan Rood (Chapin). Her daughter's sampler and a couple of Chapin genealogies are my only sources of her maiden name of Rood.  I did write a blog post summarizing what I know about her, but other than that have not worked on this. I am in contact with a Rood descendant who believes she has found the names of her parents, but is looking for primary source confirmation.
4. Choose one or two other lines to focus my research on, rather than jumping from one line to another, as I usually do. (This may be my most challenging resolution.)  Yes, this is the most challenging resolution; there are so many interesting things to find online that I am easily distracted from researching one or two lines at a time. I also have distant cousins and other researchers who contact me about lines I'm not currently working on, and then I start looking at those lines again.
5. Visit the New England Historic Genealogical Society more often, since I can easily take the train into Boston to do so!  I did get to NEHGS twice this year, but I certainly should try to get in more often!
6. I have been an NEHGS online volunteer for several years, and I didn't get as many hours in during 2011 as I did during 2010 or 2009, so my goal is to transcribe / proofread at least 7-8 hours every month.  Success on a resolution! I have averaged 7 1/2 hours a month transcribing and indexing for NEHGS this year.
7. Add more to Find A Grave, both memorials for my ancestors, as well as uploading photographs of gravestones for others who request them.  I continue to enjoy adding to Find A Grave and linking my ancestors and my husband's ancestors. I manage 208 memorials and I occasionally spend an afternoon exploring different local cemeteries taking photographs requested by others. See a post about family members I have linked at this Tuesday's Tip blog post.
8. Continue on updating sources in Family Tree Maker, my genealogy software program. [An additional resolution I added in a comment.]  I have slowly worked on this, but have not kept track of exactly which sources I have updated, so I am unable to quantify how well I have done here. I also added quite a few citations for family members I found in the 1940 US Census, released in April 2012.

Additional things I had fun doing this year included:
Obtaining 20th century death certificates for quite a few Pennsylvania ancestors. (See an example here of the death certificate for my great grandfather, Percy E. Hunter.)
Indexing the 1940 US Census. (I posted about both my indexing and my finds!)
Exploring DNA testing with AncestryDNA for myself and my husband.

These are pretty much my same goals for 2013, though I may aim for a more manageable 6-8 posts per month rather than 2 per week.

I thank you all for reading and wish you a Happy 2013!