Tag: Family Mystery

Photographic Evidence: Husted/Stanton Family

First published August 25, 2015.

While researching the last photo that I wrote about, I started thinking about a family portrait that I had.

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This picture was taken in Davenport, Iowa, so I assumed that it pictured my great-great-great-grandmother on the left, Sarah J. Husted, and her husband, Lyman B. Husted in the middle of the picture. The man in the back of the picture, who looks a lot like my father, I thought was my great-great-grandfather Lyman M. Husted. I figured the children were those of the woman on the right, who was a sister of Lyman M.

However, going through the steps to date Lyman B.’s previous photograph got me thinking that my initial assumptions were wrong. This sent me on a crazy chase to figure out who these people were in this picture.

I found some old newspapers from Davenport, Iowa that showed a divorce between Sarah J. and Lyman B. I’m not sure if this divorce went through but she shows up in later newspaper articles remarried as Sarah J. Owens. However by 1900 she was going by Sarah J. Husted again. This might be because of inheritance money that was discovered in Connecticut (I’ll talk more about this in another post). Anyway, Lyman B. was 67 when he died and I do not think that this man in this photograph is 67.

I think that Sarah J. is still the woman pictured to the left, however I think the man sitting in the middle is Jehial (or Jehral as I have previously misspelled his name) Stanton her father. In my collection of photographs, I came across a small newspaper clipping (sorry that it is crooked):

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This indicates that her father was living with her at some point when he was older. He is also blind, and I might be reading too much into the picture, but he is not looking at the camera the way the other adults are. My next question to answer was: What year was Jehial Stanton born?

This question actually took me awhile to figure out, probably because I had some wrong information. I originally thought his name was Jehral Staton, which I believe I acquired from an obituary of Sarah J. Husted. This made it hard to find any information, but once I started digging I found his correct name. Jehial Stanton was born July 4th, 1823 (based on this clipping and census data). That means that this newspaper clipping was from July 3rd, 1906. So by 1906 he was living with his daughter in Davenport.

I had a difficult time dating the fashion in this photo, but based on the women’s dresses, I think that it was taken sometime between 1900 and 1910. My next question to answer was: Who are the other people in the picture?

The younger man standing up in the middle of the picture is not my great-great-grandfather Lyman M. If this picture was taken between 1900 and 1910, he might have already moved back to his extended family in Connecticut. He does show up in the 1900 Federal Census living with his mother and brother (Sarah J.’s name shows up at the bottom of a page):

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However, I no longer think that the young man in this photo is Lyman M. Husted but rather his brother James Elnathan Husted, called Elnathan (also listed in this census). If both sons lived with Sarah J. at the time of this photo, I would think that they would both be in the photo.

Finally, who is the woman and the children? Sarah J. Husted had no female children so my previous theory was wrong. I do not think that this woman is Elnathan’s wife, Lola Husted. On his World War I draft card Elnathan listed that his address was the same as his mother’s and his mother was his next of kin whereas on his World War II draft application, his address was in another state and his next of kin was Lola and this photograph was definitely take before World War I.

Looking back at the 1900 Federal Census, an Effie M. Williams, Sarah J.’s niece, and her children, Charlie O. Williams and Effie B. Williams, are listed as living with Sarah J. The children in this photo, if it was taken between 1900 and 1904, would be about the same age as Charlie O. and Effie B. and the woman on the right of the photo looks to be in her mid twenties, as Effie M. would be. Although I tried, I could not figure out who Effie M.’s parents were.

So my conclusions at this point are that the people in this photo are Sarah J. Husted, James Elnathan Husted, Effie M. Williams, Jehial Stanton, Charlie O. Williams and Effie B. Williams.

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Mystery Grandpa

First published on August 15, 2015.

Mystery Grandpa was my first real snag in researching my family. His name was Andrew J (or H) Dwinells (or Dwinnels) and he is my paternal grandfather’s paternal grandfather or my great-great grandfather. One problem that I encounter frequently is that the spelling of his, and my, last name is often different or transcribed wrong. That sometimes makes it difficult to find the correct information and is confusing, so excuse my spelling if it differs from documents.

From what I know, Andrew J Dwinells was born on August 15, 1846 (The date of this post!). His father was Joseph James Dwinells and his mother was Hannah Maria Kelly. I could not find a record of birth for Andrew, his birthdate comes from marriage and death certificates. The first record I found of Andrew was in the 1850 Federal Census for Haverhill, Massachusetts.

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He is listed (highlighted in purple) as a four-year-old, born in Massachusetts and his occupation is a pauper, which makes sense because he lived in the “Poor House” (highlighted in green). Also listed is his brother, Frederic Dwinnels. He appears five years later in the 1855 Massachusetts Census, still living in the poor house with his brother.

When I first saw this information I was intrigued. I didn’t even know what a poor house was. I also wanted to know why Andrew and his brother were there. I could not find any information about the deaths of Andrew’s parents, thus the beginning of the mystery. There are more mysteries involving Mystery Grandpa, that I will write about later, but recently I came closer to solving this first mystery.

I was reading “The History of Haverhill, Massachusetts: From its First Settlement, in 1640, to the Year 1860” by George Wingate Chase, when I found this paragraph:

In the early part of 1850, the small-pox broke out in the western part of the town, and for a time raged fearfully. It was confined principally to the northern part of the West Parish. In School District No. 2, there were between thirty and forty cases, several of them fatal. The loathsome disease was introduced into the parish by a young lady, on a visit from Boston.

I am at the beginning stages of fully researching this, but my theory now is that Andrew’s parents died in the small pox outbreak, leaving him and his brother orphans. I will have to try to pinpoint where Andrew and his parents would have lived and possibly try to get some records about the outbreak. I know that it is kind of a grim find, but I was excited to get one step closer to solving the mysteries of Mystery Grandpa.