Help with handwriting please? Cabinet card...

Now that I've seen your most recent post - I was going to say that it would have been unlikely that an epileptic was able to become a pilot.

And I was a bit disappointed to see that the Russell I Williams as pallbearer did not have Idris as his middle name.

I have to go out now, but will attempt further searches later.

 

It's possible that William O Williams followed in the footsteps of a previous ancestor, a generation or two previous - I've had that happen in my own family, and it caught me out a couple of times!

I have to go for a while too, but will be around later. Have a great day!

 

I just spent some time looking through my photo references for the clothing that she is wearing. It appears to be from late 1870s through early 1880s, as far as I can tell.

The photographer of the original photo, D. Jones of Liverpool, was named Daniel Jones. He worked in Liverpool for a rather long time (possibly late 1850s through 1880s at least), so that doesn't really help to date it.

I didn't try to find the photographer on the memorial photo yet.

 

The copy photograph with the poem on the back was published by Mitchell of Kansas City, Missouri. I wonder who in the family had moved there?

The photographer was named Arthur Mitchell, and I found a couple of sites indicating that he was active there in the 1870s and 1880s. He was listed in the city directory for 1886.

That dark card stock and the type of lettering used leads me to believe that the copy photo was from the mid to late 1880s or possibly the early 1890s.

By the way, I finally took the time to read this entire thread. Great work, Bakers!

Fig

 

Thanks for the dates, Fig, they could come in very useful. The cabinet card I started the thread with is the only one in the album taken in Kansas City, or Missouri in fact.

 

Thank you, Fig.

 

Good morning.

Just wanted to report that I got lost in Wales yesterday. Unfortunately doing so didn't help unravel anything. I had been trying to work backwards from some of the (many) men named Williams living in Poultney and surrounding towns in 1900 and before, got thoroughly confused by the place names and gave up in frustration.

The exercise did give me a chance to "relive" my own personal experience (in the late 60's/early 70's) with that part of Vermont, though. And I suppose I should correct an earlier tidbit that's not totally unrelated to the genealogy. Poultney is not in the heart of the Green Mountains where the famous Vermont granite is quarried. It's near the flatter "plain" along the western border of the state abutting New York about 1/3 of the way up from Vermont's southern border with Massachusetts. At the very bottom of Lake Champlain. Quarries there are for slate. Not that any of that really matters, but I did notice that slate production seemed to be a common occupation in some parts of Wales as well, so if we had a sense of where those places are, it might help.

 

Hello again! Thanks for all your efforts - I've been reaching many dead-ends, which is frustrating but it's still fun to follow the (probably unrelated) families .

I holidayed in the Green Mountains of Vermont many years ago, and loved the area. And we visited Manchester, Vermont, while we were there and thought it quite amusing, since we come from near Manchester in the UK! I can totally understand why people would want to emigrate to Vermont, particularly in the 1800s; all the space and opportunity must have been very enticing.

Now, I tried to approach the photo album from a different perspective this weekend, and tried to trace Emily & Elias Griffith, names that are written above a small photo of a quite stern looking woman. No location given, but in 1901 there's a couple in their 20s living in Llanfairfechan, N. Wales. No children. In 1911, they are still in the same town, but Emily is now called Elizabeth Therza... same age and birthplace though. Tracing her husband to 1891, he's with his parents in Llanfairfechan, and families in the street include Roberts (with a child called Humphrey) and a Williams family too. But just like you, I got lost in the names, which are often repeated. Made me smile when I came across a Griffith Griffiths! so that's as far as I got.

I also posted a couple of photos to the Rootschat forum, specifically for help with the Welsh that I don't understand. And the one below has been interpreted as 'sister Anty(?) Jane, Scybor Ddu'*. Scybor Ddu is a township on Anglesey, a small place with not much information about it on the web.


This second one has been interpreted as 'Uncle Stiniog, Grandfather's Brother', where Stiniog is a contraction of the place name Festiniog. The same man also appears on a cabinet card taken in Festiniog.


I'm not sure where all this takes me yet, but every little helps!

*Edit: it might not be Scybor Ddu afterall... could be ysgubor, meaning barn.