v1.7.2001

Unearthing Relevant News, Advice and Updates for the Living
©DeadFred.com

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Dead Fred's Meditation Corner

If you have a quote or anecdote for our Meditation Corner, send it to us at meditation@deadfred.com.

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Words From The Reunited

FOUND! Eliza Ellis, Great Great Grandmother of Gloria Ellis.

Thanks! I enjoyed seeing college pictures of my grandfather at U. Maine. The first two pictures under Stewart which are from Orono are Loren Prescott Stewart of Montville, Maine. He was killed in the Battle of Bataan. I have the saber from the picture of the cadets. I will be in contact with Maine friends. I e-mailed all my Stewart and Rowell (his mother's maiden name) relatives to look at your web site! Regards, Maryfrances Stewart I was surprised to see a photo of my gggrandmother Eliza on your site. The photo is number 13679 jpg. It also mentions that she is the mother-in-law of Libbie Runkle-Ellis. Is there a way to find out if a relative submitted this, so we can communicate? I have seen two poses of Gramma Eliza, but they were cropped and didn't show her hands or the book she was holding. Thanks for this great site. I'm going to see if my relatives are willing to submit some of the many photos we have. Thanks! Gloria Ellis Saginaw, MI I just checked your site, and I found a picture of Nellie Howd. Nellie Howd is my great grandmother. She married Erwin Stanford. They had two children before she died young. They were my grandfather Burr and his Brother Ray Howd Stanford. I wanted to know if the person who submitted the picture left an address. I do not have any pictures of Erwin Stanford. I do have another picture of Nellie, but it is a photocopy. I am hoping to find other pictures of Howds and Stanfords. Thanks, Donald Stanford

Have you found a relative? Be sure to write and tell us about your lucky discoveries at DeadFred.com! Share your reunion experience here.

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Letters To The Archivists

Thank you, Joe!

The project is very unique and interesting, and you are working with a great team at Vulcan.

Susan Porter, Editor
Fayetteville Free Weekly
http://www.freeweekly.com

Hi Joe!

I would love to read the Free Weekly article. It is wonderful to have a site like this! For those of us who are trying to get copies of photos of family ancestors, it is a treasure that grows every day. So many family trees cross, and I hope everyone that is fortunate enough to have old family photos contributes so that perhaps a long-lost relative will be reunited with the proper past.

Accolades to Jeannette for getting more exposure for this wonderful site.

Connie Naylor

I don't know how to see the pictures that are already in the system. Where do I go for instructions how to view the pictures. If I put in a name, I get something like "not here." But I want to view "all" the pictures for faces.

Thank you,
Lena Stone Criswell
Albuquerque, NM

Hi Lena!

The Archive is designed for people looking for family. Our database is designed for searching by any of a number "key" attributes such as surname, first name, town, state, location, photographer and photographer's state. There is no way presently to view all the photos at one time.

You can, however, enter a Country search and all the photo information sheets will become available individually with access to that particular photo. This is done one photo at a time.

I hope this answers your question. If you have any other questions, please write and let us know.

Regards,
Joe Bott
http://www.deadfred.com

I'm looking for my ancestors on my mother's side. Her name is Rosemary L. Aspinall (married name Minnich).

A good place to start will be The Aspinall Message Board at http://www.rootsweb.com
http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec?htx=board&r=rw&p=surnames.aspinall

Also...very important. Get onto the Aspinall mailing list by going to http://lists.rootsweb.com/index/surname/a/aspinall.html and following the directions for signing up.

Also try Genealogy.com at http://www.genealogy.com/genealogy/users/a/s/p/Margaret-peggi-Aspinall/index.html

A tree with Aspinalls in it a Genealogy.com
http://www.genealogy.com/users/a/s/p/Margaret-peggi-Aspinall/ftitree.html

In addition, you might consider starting a Aspinall message board at
http://genforum.genealogy.com/surnames/a.html

Best of Luck!

My grandfather attended the University of Illinois in 1918 as an officer candidate for the Army. Does the yearbook have any group photos of Army folk? If so, how does one find them on your site?

Nancy Shepherdson
Barrington, IL

Hi Nancy!

Yes, there are many student army photos. Send me his name, and I will look him up...

I will be putting these photos in the Archive as time permits. At the moment, the search offers surname, given & middle names, state, province, town, country, photographer and photographer's town.

Regards,
Joe

Whether you have a bone to pick or a eulogy to offer, send your thoughts to letters@deadfred.com.

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Pick & Shovel Highlights

Subject: Throwing away photos :(
Author: Lee Fiarbanks (lee@artjunky.com)
Date: 12/4/2001 1:33 pm CST

My wife recently went to an estate sale and found a box of old photos. Some
of them were from the late 1800s.

What gets me is that these people were getting rid of them. My wife took a
box of them, and I ended up throwing away half of them. I kept the best
ones.

It’s just sad to think that there are photos out there that someone is
tossing away that I would want. I am sure there was actually someone that
would have loved to have these photos .

I have been archiving my own photos using a database-driven web site.
http://www.artjunky.com/familyphotos

Subject: Looking for photos Marler, Medlin, Cochran, Bisbing
Author: Sonny Marler (sonnyddou@hotmail.com)
Date: 12/3/2001 9:02 pm CST

Would love to see photos of the above surnames.

Subject: Long-Lost Fraternity Brothers??
Author: Becca Lynn (BeccaLynnOSU@yahoo.com)
Date: 11/20/2001 6:36 pm CST

Hi!

I was flipping through the mystery pictures from 1850-1900 and came across a
series of photos from a NY studio, all of young men about 18-24. They all
were wearing diamond-shaped black pins. I think they might be members of a
fraternity, possibly Phi Gamma Delta, Pi Kappa Alpha, or Beta Theta Pi.

Just a thought,
B

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Dead Fred's Pop Quiz

Do you know something we don't know that might make an interesting pop quiz? Send us your information tidbits here.

We'll let you know the poll results next month. Thanks for your participation.

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What's New In The Database?

Surnames Submitted (10/29-11/29)

http://www.deadfred.com/photos/13503.jpg
Emma Weaver
Holdenville, OK
United States

http://www.deadfred.com/photos/13507.jpg
Minnie Starr
Tulsa, OK
United States
Comments = This is a postmortem. The child is shown in her coffin with lid open.

http://www.deadfred.com/photos/13513.jpg
Jane Watson
London
England

http://www.deadfred.com/photos/13625.jpg
Harva Thompson
Lansing, IA
United States
Comments = This photo is with a group of photos from McGregor & Lansing, Iowa, and Canton, Minnesota names, including Susie M. Bacon, Mrs. Maria Phipps, Mary Tully Winter, Charles Roland Bacon and Marguerite Bacon, Jennie Forsyth and many others.

http://www.deadfred.com/photos/13944.jpg
Clyde Taylor
Tallhatchie, MS
United States
Comments = Tallhatchie County. This was taken before 1931.

To view all identified photos added in the last 30 days (including today), go to http://www.deadfred.com/search/allsubmissions.asp.

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Recognize These Faces?

http://www.deadfred.com/photos/13501.jpg
State = TX
Country = USA
Comments = This photo was found in my Aunt's pictures after she passed on. The back of the photo has Clay and Nix.

http://www.deadfred.com/photos/13563.jpg
State = NY
Country = United States
Comments = Paula in Galeville or Tuttletown in NY. I've been told this is a locally historic building and is still in use as a boarding house in the 1990s. Contact Freida Risvold fritzyritzy@hotmail.com

http://www.deadfred.com/photos/13599.jpg
State = NY
Country = United States
Comments = Studio located at 229 & 231 Bleecker St. Original of this photo has been donated to the Archive by Jean Hazard. Questions? E-mail joe@deadfred.com

http://www.deadfred.com/photos/13645.jpg
State = IN
Country = United States
Comments = This was in my great-grandfather's belongings. He was John Charles Willis, who ran away from Scranton at the age of 16. He showed up in Valparaiso, IN. Then he settled in South Bend, IN, after wedding Alta May Baker.

http://www.deadfred.com/photos/13825.jpg
Country = Scotland
Comments = Photography Studio at Hamilton, Coatbridge & Strathhaven.

To view all mystery photos added in the last 30 days (including today), go to http://www.deadfred.com/search/mysteryfinder.asp.

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Claire's Top Picks

Here is yet another list for you. I hope you enjoy these links, and please remember, I would love to hear from you. Please submit any web site that you think is great or needs improvement.

http://www.usps.gov/letters/volume2/index.html
There is nothing quite like receiving a letter via snail mail. The United States Postal Service has a collection of beautiful letters. They are separated into three categories as follows: Letters to Santa, Presidential Letters and Love Letters. This is a wonderful site.

http://www.jigzone.com
If you need a break, go to this fun web site. They have many different jigsaw puzzles from which to choose.

http://www.islandregister.com/url.html
For those searching anything Canadian, this is the site to explore. A definite bookmark!!!

If there are any web sites that you would like Claire to review, please e-mail them to claire@deadfred.com.

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Everybody's Going Online For Genealogy

While many web sites are faltering in the Internet-unfriendly economy, family history sites continue to attract more users than ever. According to CNET, sites that provide ancestry information have increased traffic over the last year.

Ancestry.com has seen a 15 percent increase since October 2000. Genealogy.com gained 13 percent. RootsWeb's traffic is up 9 percent. And in just six months since its launch, EllisIslandRecords.org has received 1.5 billion hits.

"In this day and age, especially after the attacks on Sept. 11 and the scare with anthrax, people are more family-oriented," says Sam Daniel, director of information technology for the Ellis Island Foundation.

For similar updates, go to http://www.familytreemagazine.com to sign up for Family Tree Magazine's free e-zine.

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12,000th Image Uploaded

In the last newsletter, we mentioned that on October 14, 2001, we reached our goal of 10,000 images. On November 25, 2001, we reached our 12,000th image! That's 2,000 new people added to DeadFred.com in 42 days.

In addition, our newsletter subscribers list has increased 20% in the past 30 days. That's 120 NEW subscribers! Looks like the great thing that is Dead Fred is catching on and turning heads, increasing everyone's chances of a reunion with a long-lost relative.

If you have not signed up yet, go to http://www.deadfred.com and add your e-mail address to the list.

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Food Glorious Food

I am exhausted. I have come to the conclusion, and I am sure many of you might agree, that creating family memories can be an exhausting endeavor.

Last week I cooked my first Thanksgiving dinner. It was going to be a very quiet Thanksgiving, just my husband, my two girls and myself. Instead, I had 16 human beings for whom to cook. Please note, we had just moved into our new home the weekend prior to this occasion. I know, you must think I am crazy and I would have to agree. Well, to make an extremely long story short, the dinner went well. The turkey was yummy, the guests were happy, and the football was great.

And then just two days ago I made a two-tier wedding cake. I have just completed taking a twelve-week cake decorating course. Our final project was to make a wedding cake. If you don't mind my saying so, I think it looked quite pretty.

I believe that with each "endeavor" that we undertake there is something to be learned. My lesson this week was realizing how food is an important ingredient in creating wonderful family memories. Until this week, I took the process of making a "family" meal for granted. When I took the time to think of family gatherings, whether the family was celebrating a holiday, a reunion or a wedding, we always talk about the food that was served. Most of the time the food was delicious, but you always remember the occasions when the food was not so favorable. Even to this day, some twenty years later, my mother still talks about her cousin's wedding. It seems that on this special day over half of the guests had empty dinner plates. That's right...they didn't have enough food.

"Who cares about the bride's dress when you are hungry," my mother stated.

"Claire," she warned me, "always have enough food. You always want your guests to be full and happy. Because to be honest, people like to eat. That's why they came...to eat!!!"

This is a wonderful time of year to create new family memories and traditions. It is also a time when people think of the past. I hope you all have a wonderful time with your families, since that is what the holidays are for. But please take my mother's advice and have enough food and drink. Happy Holidays and Happy New Year!

Send your questions or comments about this story to claire@deadfred.com.

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Dig Up The Past at Dead Fred

"We're in such a present-minded age, and we're in such a rush to move into the future, people want to know where they came from," Librarian of Congress James Billington has said. "They want to feel that they have some permanence in this very shifting world, and you find that from looking back where you came from."

DeadFred.com, home of the Original Genealogy Photo Archive, addresses this universal need to make a connection with the past. The new site is intended to unite the living present with the quiet past through photography. The site was posted earlier this year and is free to the public. Joe Bott of Springdale founded the archive.

"I realized that the Genealogy Society was fragmented when it came to photos; there was no comprehensive archive of photos that was organized from a genealogical standpoint," Bott said. "Therefore, DeadFred.com is the first of its kind. It is a historical and cultural survey that is recorded in the most dynamic of media: human individuals."

DeadFred.com allows archivists to give ancestral photographs back to their families. If a visitor finds a long-lost relative among the photographs actually owned by the archive, the visitor, upon showing proof of relation and waiting the required six months, can claim the original photograph for the cost of postage. However, DeadFred.com does not have any authority over donated photographs. Contributors often post their names and e-mail addresses with their submissions so visitors can contact the owners directly about specific photographs.

The site's searchable database contains thousands of photographs from the United States, Mexico, Canada, France, Ireland, Scotland and England that date before 1960. Currently, the database contains more than 4,358 surnames representing 11,053 individuals. Visitors can search the database three ways—by specific surname, by first letter of the surname and by a detailed search function.

In addition to the identified photo search, the site includes an uploader for collecting online photo submissions, mysteries search, monthly newsletter, media center, FAQs, testimonials, "Pick and Shovel" bulletin board, genealogy links and feedback form. Visitors can submit photographs by following the guidelines on the site. The archive automatically tags any photographs submitted without surnames as mysteries and categorizes them in the mysteries database.

Solving a mystery prompted Bott to create DeadFred. A husband, father and manager of Research and Development at Tyson Foods, Bott is also the avid photograph collector and mastermind behind DeadFred.com. After accumulating thousands of old photos over the past 30 years, he worked with creative agency Vulcan Creative Labs of Springdale, to transform his hobby into a full-time activity for his retirement.

"I once came across a photograph dating back to 1902 of a woman and a baby from New Jersey. The woman was identified as Ms. Griegson, and the baby's name was William," Bott said. "After doing some online research, I discovered that William had died in 1995, but I succeeded in finding the contact information for William's son. What a pure thrill it was to tell this unsuspecting man that I had a photo of his father at a couple of months old being held by his grandmother. I sent him the photo, and the idea that evolved into DeadFred.com was born."

Eric Huber of Vulcan said that he was inspired by Bott's collection when designing the site. "While looking through the photos in Joe's collection, the strong sense of seeing small slices of people's lives really struck me. I didn't want to create a boring, static web site, but rather show that here are volumes of stories that can only be guessed at with these single images."

A member of the graphic design community for more than 16 years, Huber manages the layout of DeadFred.com, keeping the site properly organized, easily navigable and pleasing to the eye. In addition to other team members at Vulcan, Claire Bott, Joe's daughter-in-law, manages the site's traffic flow and develops the site content and quality.

Bott's great-great-grandfather was born during the reign of Frederick III and died shortly before the emperor's death. Therefore, Joe decided to give Frederick III, Emperor of Germany and King of Prussia, a place of honor on the site. In creating DeadFred.com, Bott recognizes his own family lineage and provides others a unique vehicle for tracing their own roots.

Since the site was established in March, several people from around the country have found family photographs on DeadFred.com. The site has received more than 100,000 page views.

"I found two uncles, one aunt, and one great-grand aunt," said Janalee Garn of Idaho Falls, Idaho. "They all lived in Polk County, Iowa, when the pictures were taken."

Monica Yokubinas said that one of the photographs looked so much like her husband that she could not stop staring at it. "My husband's father was born in 1911, and he did not marry my mother-in-law until he was 50 years old in 1961, which was the year my husband was born. Before this time, we do not know too much about his history except that he was born in Scranton, Penn., and he traveled to New York, New Jersey and throughout Pennsylvania for work.

"What really got me thinking it is him is the totally circumstantial stuff I found after his house burned down and he passed away. He had saved a death card in a small Lithuanian bible for a Cesina Simone who died August 20,1955. The top of the death card had been deliberately cut off. He also had in there an old business card for a Detective Pat DePalma of the Boonton Police Department in New Jersey. Lastly, there was the small school picture of a girl who looks just like the woman in the picture."

The site is of interest also to those who may not be looking for lost family photographs. The Miller Poem is an heirloom consisting of a series of family photographs and 14 accompanying verses written by Lucy Pancoast Smith in 1891.

Photograph number 11279 of Irene Stainbrook dates back to 1930. The subject's romantic pose is one of elegance. She holds a pair of white satin gloves and a bouquet and is perched on a windowsill looking outside.

The Mullins Album is a compilation of photographs by Marjorie Mullins of Norman and Oilton, Okla. and dates back to 1914. The photographs depict the oil fields of Oilton as well as a swinging bridge.

DeadFred.com offers a monthly newsletter, "Relatively Speaking: Unearthing Relevant News, Advice and Updates for the Living." The newsletter features links to recent photo submissions, a list of new surnames, success stories, genealogy news, editorials, letters to the archivists and highlights from the "Pick and Shovel" board.

To contact an archivist call 927-3330 by mail@deadfred.com with any questions or comments.

The preceding story was featured on the front page of the Fayetteville Free Weekly during the week of November 8-14, 2001. Go to http://www.freeweekly.com/pages/deadfred.htm to view the article online with pictures.

Send your questions or comments about this story to jeannette@deadfred.com.

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A Peculiar Lesson in Perseverance For The Genealogist
By Margaret Davis

Yesterday I had the most wonderful surprise! No, I didn't do a "happy dance;" it was more like a stunned and sustained, "Ooooooooooo, look at that!" There is a lesson to be learned in this story, but I am not sure just what it is yet. Perhaps it teaches the virtue of perseverance.

It all started about three years ago when I began my SMITH family research in Berkshire Co., MA. I began with nothing but my grandmother's maiden name. It's a good thing it was all so new to me because a name like Anna Jane SMITH didn't daunt me at all<grin>. I gained more information little by little, and I began to hear about a "Brick House." It seemed to have some notoriety in the area.

There is the Brick House Road, Brick House Mountain, Brick House Cemetery, etc. I slowly learned that my 4th great-grandfather had built a brick house, and it was improved upon by his sons. I wanted to see this house!

Last June, two wonderful people went looking in the forest for the Brick House Cemetery; they didn't find it, but they DID find the ruins of the Brick House. They took pictures of the foundation and even brought back a brick that had fallen into the cellar. Then in September, in a most peculiar way, I am in Nevada and had a friend in Iowa who went to Berkshire Co. to research. THAT friend found the name, phone number and address of a woman who had been researching the same thing EIGHTEEN years ago. It turns out that the woman and I are double cousins!

I had a lot of info she did not have and vice versa. Then she rechecked some pictures her mother had left her, and THERE WAS A PICTURE OF THE BRICK HOUSE! That is when I gave my long, "Oooooooo...."

Absolutely, I never expected to see such a picture, and I am so thrilled by it. Call me foolish, but I can't help feeling that my ancestors led me to it.

Well, I have gone on too long, but I did want to share this story with you. Perhaps the lesson is "Don't give up."

~Margaret in NV

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About The Co-Editors

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Maybe It’s Your Image.

Image decides whether people take you seriously. If you neglect your image, you might as well be referring potential business to your competitors. Image is your company’s most valuable commodity. For something so important, why depend on the amateurs?

Contact the professionals at Vulcan Creative Labs for your FREE consultation and quote.

Toll free: 1.866.424.5079
mail@vulcancreative.com
http://www.vulcancreative.com