J. Dwinells

Origin Story: Joseph Dwinells

First published on October 19, 2015.

I thought that this post would be easy to write up, but as i looked a little closer into my family tree I found some problems. When I first started using ancestry.com I was amazed to find that there were a multitude of other trees that had my ancestors on them, so with a very quick check, I added that information to my tree. However, a lot of the information was not correct and I found that inconsistencies were carried over from others pasting to their trees. I don’t do this anymore, but there is a lot of mess in my tree which was evident as I went to look for information about Joseph Dwinells. I even found some fishy information in a book that I had. Before I start with Joseph’s story I have a disclaimer, in the rest of my posts I will only use the surname Dwinells although it may appear different in documents. This is just to keep things less confusing for everyone, especially me. Without further ado, the story of Joseph Dwinells.

Joseph Dwinells was born in 1763, to James Dwinells and Abigail Bailey Platts in East Bradford, Massachusetts. His father was a butcher, but I don’t know much of anything about Joseph’s life until his marriage to Ruth Lufkin Whittier (she will be the next origin story post). By that time, he had moved to Haverhill, Massachusetts, which is nearby East Bradford. James was married to Ruth on June 10th, 1791 at the age of 28, Ruth was 21. I don’t know what Joseph’s trade was but he and Ruth did have a lot of children, nine to be exact:

Moses, born December 17, 1791
Susannah, born March 7, 1793
William (my direct ancestor), born December 7, 1795
James, born June 8, 1799
Harriet, born October 11, 1801
Eliza, born January 8, 1804
Phillip Hackett, born July 7, 1806
Leonard Carlton, born March 6, 1810
Sarah Ann, born November 1, 1812

At least 3 of his children married and had families, with a large number of grandchildren. The only other information I know about Joseph Dwinells was that he died in January 1813, at the age of 50, in the army at Greenbush, New York. in 1813, Greenbush was a camp for the army during the War of 1812. (A map of the camp and it’s history can be found here) I didn’t know this but the War of 1812 didn’t only occur in 1812 but lasted until 1815. I assumed that since Joseph died at an army camp used during the War of 1812, that he was in the army for the War of 1812. However, I could not find any record of him. Seeing as he passed away a few months after his last child was born, I looked at the widow war pensions, figuring that Ruth would need assistance raising her children. I couldn’t find any record of this as well.

I have a few theories as to why I can’t find any information, perhaps Joseph wasn’t fully mustered in the army. His information as well as Ruth’s could have been lost. Another theory is that he passed away in a less than honorable way, but I still feel like there would be information somewhere. There might well be information somewhere and perhaps I can take a trip to the National Archives, or Greenbush to further research documents that aren’t online. I will definitely look into finding more information.

The information in this post came from the Massachusetts Town and Vital Records and The True Genealogy of the Dunnel and Dwinnell Family of New England.

Quick Update

First published on October 12, 2015.

I am back from my Columbus Day Weekend trip and I have tons of new (old) photos and documents to go through, maybe more than my great-grandmother’s box. However, preliminarily these photos seem to have more names on them than the others. This collection also belonged to my great-grandmother, and was in another family member’s house. I don’t want to go too crazy scanning and preserving these photos all at once, so I’m going to take my time. I also need to try to investigate the photos that I already had. My new plan is to have two new posts a week, one will be a photo investigation and the other will be an ancestor profile. I’ll also throw in a few updates or short little posts from time to time. Hopefully through this approach, I can post more consistently.

Photographic Evidence: Pictures of Animals Part II

First published on October 9, 2015.

I had so many picture of animals that I broke this post into a two parter. Please enjoy some more pictures of animals. No more creepy cats on this one.

This is a regular cat, with a cow in the distance.

I love this dog.

I think his owner loved him too.

Photographic Evidence: Pictures of Animals Part I

First published on October 7, 2015.

In my collection of photographs, I found a few pictures of animals. I think some of them were pets and some were farm animals. Some show a person with the animal and in others the animal is the only subject. Pictures of animals are much harder to identify than people, their names aren’t in many records and you can’t date the photograph based on what they are wearing. I might never know the names of these animals but they are still (mostly) cute.

I guess that is a cat, but it sure is creepy!

This cutie.

Ducks

Photographic Evidence: Photographer’s Mark

First published October 5, 2015.

I apologize for my long silence, my computer had a “gremlin” that had to be conquered and I am just picked it up today. I’ll be back to posting regularly. Next weekend, I’m taking a trip home and showing my photographs and research to some family members. Hopefully this will shed more light on to the identities in the photographs that I have.

In my photo collection there is this picture:

There are actually many different copies of this picture but on each of them, there are no names on the back and no adults. It’s difficult to link this child’s photograph with any other pictures. However, using the photographer’s mark, I was able to figure out more information about this photograph and get one step closer to figuring out who this is.

This photo was taken my H.J. Seeley who was located on 922 Main Street in Bridgeport, Connecticut. I couldn’t find a building that has the same address today. Right off the bat, this gave me a place where this picture was taken, thus a place that this child lived.

I looked at old city directories for Bridgeport, Connecticut and H.J. Seeley’s photography studio wasn’t always at 922 Main Street. From at least the 1870s to 1899 the studio was at a different address and from 1900 on the studio moved to the 922 address. This gives a rough time frame for the year this photo was taken.

The next thing to examine in this photo is the child. I’m not a good judge of children’s ages but I’m assuming this child is a toddler so, around three to four years old. In old photographs, the part in a child’s hair is a good indication of their sex, hair parted to the side is typical for a male and hair parted in the middle is typical for a female. This child’s hair is parted to the side, so he is probably a boy.

Thus far I know this child is a boy who lived in Bridgeport, Connecticut and was born around 1900-1910. I’m not sure if this child is related to me but I have multiple copies of this photo in my collection so I’m thinking that this child was very close to my great-grandmother (the pictures are hers). Looking at my family tree, this child could be my great-grandmother’s brother Robert, who was born in 1910. They could also be pictures of her husband Willard Everett who was born in 1903.

I found another picture taken at H.J. Seeley, and based on my other photos I believe her to be Lucy Lamb Husted, my great-great-grandmother who’s child is Robert.

Based on this information, I think that this picture is probably of Robert Husted, my great-great-great-uncle. I have four copies of this picture of Robert plus this other one.

Photographic Evidence: My Favorite Photograph, Two Men By A Pond

First published on September 13, 2015.

I am still computer-less so research is difficult at this moment. The good news is that I’m supposedly going to get all of the information off of my computer, phew. I wanted to share my favorite picture that was in my great-grandmother’s box. It is a gorgeous picture, both crisp and soft at the same time. It shows two men by a pond or lake. One man is crouched down by the pond and looks like he may have a fishing pole with him. The other man, mustachioed, is looked off into the distance. The bushes and grass in the foreground are very stark compared to the dreamy trees in the distance. This is by far my favorite picture to look at.

Right now I cannot say who these men are, but the man crouching by the pond is my great-great-grandfather Lyman Husted. I also don’t know who took this picture, but whoever it was, they captured a perfect moment.

Lewiston Snowshoe Convention

This is another new/real time post. Remember that picture I posted yesterday?

I was intrigued, so I googled Lewiston’s Ice Palace Snowshoe Convention and here’s what I found:

Lewiston is a town in Maine where in 1925 a large number of French Canadians who were part of snowshoe clubs came to the town and had a “New England Mardi Gras“, including winter sports and other various sorts of wintry fun, like building an ice palace. This picture in my collection is from the tenth anniversary of the Snowshoe Convention. There are some videos of the Snowshoe Convention in 1950. Sadly the last convention was in 2015 because Snowshoe Clubs had been slowly disappearing through the years.

I don’t know who from my family went to the 1935 Snowshoe Convention, but I’m sure they had fun.

Postcard I

Originally posted on September 9, 2015.

This is one of my favorite postcards from my collection. It was sent or post marked from Litchfield, Connecticut on April 11, 1913 at 6:30pm. It’s amazing that I can get that close with the date and time. It was sent to Mrs. Lyman M. Husted, also known as Lucy Lamb Husted. Lucy is my great-great-grandmother and this postcard was written by her mother Adella Bunnell Lamb. This post card also looks beautiful, it has a ridged texture. Here’s a picture of both sides of the postcard and a transcription of the writing:

Dear Luci (?)

Not receiving a letter from you this week as yet, will drop you a card instead of a latter. Naturally you are disappointed in not seeing Roy. He thought when we went away he couldn’t afford to go to both places. I think the experience has showed him some things. He is at home + at work again. All are well, Mamma

In all of the letters that I have from Adella to her daughter, Adella always talks about how Lucy doesn’t write. Even Lucy mentions it in her letter to Adella. Maybe Lucy didn’t like to write letters, or perhaps she was to busy to write, as she explains in her letter. When Adella wrote this postcard, Lucy was 23 years-old with one child and another on the way.

The Roy in the letter is most likely Leroy W. Lamb. He was born in 1894 so at the time of this post card, he was around 19 years-old. In a 1917 military census Leroy was still living at home and worked as a farm hand. He lists that he has a serious disability, “Breack”. I have no idea what that means.

I don’t know why Roy was traveling or where he went instead of visiting his sister, maybe other correspondence will shine the light on Roy’s travels.

Snow Pictures

This is a new post or a real time post? I’m not sure, but it’s not one of my old posts from my previous blog. Two days ago we had some crazy winter weather here in Philadelphia and in honor of that I wanted to post some snow pictures from my old photo collection. They are mostly pictures of dogs in the snow.

New/Old Information

First Published on September 7, 2015.

I still don’t have my computer but I was able to scan some more photographs and do a little more research. This was especially good because my parents brought me the rest of the contents of the box of old pictures. I found another tintype photograph. I’m not sure who is in the picture yet but here is a sneak peek:

In the box, there was also a large old photo album. I have no idea who the photo album belonged to originally, what side of the family. This means that I’ll get to do a lot more digging there are some real gems in the photo album. Here’s another sneak peek of those pictures:

Stay tuned for more exciting origin stories!