A New Quest: Returning Photos to Family

 Genealogy research has long been a passion of mine.  Ever since my mother left me a pile of old family photos and I built my own family tree, I have been fascinated by the endeavor to identify family members and their pictures when available.  While I have done extensive research on my own line, and have quite a number of photos from different lines, there are still a few relatives whose photos I am missing, and of course once you get back in the early 1800’s, you have people who were never photographed at all.  Still, I am always looking for more.

Elizabeth "Bessie" Tucker

 So, a few months ago, I was contacted by Kate Brian Kelly, a woman who has a most fascinating and altruistic hobby of reuniting old photos with family members.  She basically buys old photos in antique stores and the like, then does research to identify descendants.  What she does is truly amazing and inspiring, and she provides the photos free of charge, even though she spends her own money to acquire these lost family treasures.  She reached out to me on Ancestry.com because she had found a photograph of my cousin, Elizabeth “Bessie” Tucker.  She married a Canadian, Lorne Alexander Rapley, and I don’t know if she had any children.  While the original print went to another cousin, I was grateful to see a digital copy.

 Shortly thereafter, Kate contacted me again, having found a photo of Elizabeth’s father, William Newton Tucker, who was my great-great grandmother, Mertie Gamble Count’s, first cousin on both sides of her family.  Her father was the brother of William’s mother, and her mother was the sister of William’s father.  Therefore, they had nearly the same genetic similarities as full siblings.  It was amazing to get a picture of William in his youth.

William Newton Tucker

 Kate runs a facebook group, The Photo Angel, which highlights success stories of reuniting photos with family.  Among her finds, she also discovered baby photos of my great-grandfather's, George Sylvester Count’s, sister Florella and Brother Hugh.  I suspect these pictures may have once belonged to my Aunt Martha Counts who died in 2012, as they turned up in Connecticut where she lived, but I honestly don’t know.  Anyway, it was great to see these.

 Following these experiences, I have decided it is time that I did my part to bring lost family photos to life.  I have already purchased a few batches of old photos with identifying writing on them, and using online resources like Ancestry and Familysearch, I will see who I can find.  I know I am always grateful when someone brings a new family picture to light, and I am expecting that others will be equally pleased to reclaim a little bit of their own personal heritage that might otherwise be lost forever.

 Therefore, I’ve started a new blog, to detail my research.  Following this post, the photos and individuals highlighted here will not be my own family.  Anyone is free to copy and share the pictures I find and share on this blog.  I think posting them here will be the easiest way to disseminate them to as many relatives as possible.

 I am not seeking renumeration for my work, though that means I may not be able to afford to do as much as I would like.  It can get expensive buying photos that are 100+ years old.  Different people have different reasons for wanting them, and antique stores can drive prices up based on demand.  I’ll buy what I can, and research when I have the time.  Either way, it is one of my many passions, and I feel it is good work well worth doing.

Counts Family Photo

It has been a long time since I wrote a column about my ancestry, and there's one that I've been thinking about for quite a while.  A couple of years ago, my cousin Esther sent me a photo of the Counts family from around 1901.  The quality is okay, though not the greatest as it's a photo of a photo.  I'm not sure who has the original, but I'd love to see a clearer copy someday, perhaps one that's computer-scanned.

So, in this photo we see my great-great grand parents, James Wilson Counts (b. 14 Nov 1856 /died 16 March 1931) and Mertie Florella (Gamble) Counts (b. 23 June 1864 /died 18 April 1946), along with their 6 children:

Florella T. Counts (b. 8 February 1886 /died April 1969.  Married Walter D. McKittrick)

Hugh Wiley Counts (b. 16 January 1888 /died 20 September 1975.  Married Ada Bartlett, later Charlotte Law)

George Sylvester (my great-grandfather, b. 9 December 1889 /died 10 November 1974.  Married Lois Hazel Bailey)

Wilson James Counts (b. 11 June 1891 /died March 1979.  Married Wilma B. Crossan)

Mary Counts (b. 30 April 1895 /died 30 November 1993.  Married O. Boone Morgan)

Milton Irwin Counts (b. 24 February 1899 /died 10 July 1974.  Married Clara Eugenia Van Vleck)

The other people in the photo are at present uncertain.  Esther initially suspected that the old couple in the middle could be Mertie's parents, Theodore Beza Gamble and Florella Amanda (Tucker) Gamble, but this is quite impossible, as both of them died before this photo was taken (1893 & 1895, respectively).  The Counts kids are far too old for this to be the 1890's.

Confirmed S.T. Counts

Suspected S.T. Counts

I suspect that the old couple in the photo are actually Sylvester Tobias Counts and his wife, Mary Ann (Wilson) Counts.  I also suspect the lady on the far left of the photo is their daughter, James Wilson Count's sister, Jennie Hannah (Counts) Marcy.  This is pure speculation, as I do not have other photos of them, except for Sylvester's old Civil War photo.  It's hard to make out his facial features in that grainy photo, so it's not enough for a positive identification.

I would love to find an attributed photo of Sylvester, Mary, or Jennie, for comparison, but thus far such photos have proven elusive.  So, the search goes on.

New Discoveries Forthcoming

On Friday, I won National Novel Writing Month with a little over 50,000 words written in "The Six-Gun Conjurer."  After 25 days of solid writing, it was time I took a little break.  I still have a few scenes to write, and the big finale to complete, and I'll get to that in a few days, but it's sometimes good to sit back and take a breather.  Creativity takes time.

Anyway, yesterday morning I finally got around to activating my subscription to Ancestry.com.  A few months ago, I purchased a copy of their Family Tree Maker 2011 software, and it came with 3 free months of full access to their site.  There are a lot of things they have in their database that you can't find elsewhere, and it is helping me to uncover more bits of information about my various family lines.

Here are just a few highlights of what I've uncovered so far.

New information has already cropped up concerning my Robinson line.  It turns out that William V. Robinson was a Civil War Veteran.  He signed up as a Private with the New Jersey 6^th Infantry Regiment, and ended up as a Sergeant with the 8^th.  I also found his death record, stating he died on 28 July 1910.

Joseph B. Robinson, as it turns out, was a house painter in Camden, New Jersey, until his untimely death on 18 March 1918.  He died of Tuberculosis.  I'd been unaware of this information, as Joseph ran off on his wife and daughter about 20 years earlier.  Joseph's older sister, Mary J. Robinson, also died of TB on 10 December 1904.



John Julius Kirton



I found WWI army enlistment cards for two of my grandmother's uncles, Hugh Wiley Counts and Milton Counts.  I'm sure there are some interesting stories to be had there, though I haven't had the chance to hear too much from my Counts cousins recently.

In addition to these discoveries, I am finding more data that substantiates my earlier findings.  I've also found a few photographs of interest, including my father's parents' yearbook photos from the University of Michigan, and a picture of my mother's father with the Glee Club from his freshman year at East Orange High School in 1933.

There is much more to uncover, so I'll get back to it.  I expect to resume work on my writing projects in a few days, after I've dug up enough family data to satisfy my curiosity and compose a few more posts.

Vacation Destinations

Yes, it is Sunday, and yes this is a Family Sunday posting.  In my continuing ancestral research, numerous locations pop up, places where different branches of my family originally settled, or called home in the past centuries.  It is my hope to visit a few of these someday, but at the moment it is fairly impossible for me to get away.  Perhaps future years and fortune will give me the opportunity.

Today, I'll share a few of the places I'd like to visit at some point.  Mind you, these aren't liable to be hot tourist destinations, and are only interesting to me because of my familial ties.

Bridgeton, New Jersey:  Really, all of Cumberland County would be on the tour, but Bridgeton is the center of it all.  Hendersons, Ballingers, Robinsons, and other assorted ancestors came from this area, and it would be interesting to have a look around.

Baldwin City, Kansas:  Home of the Counts family.  My great grandfather, George Sylvester Counts, was born and raised with three brothers and two sisters on a farm outside of town, and it would be interesting to drop by for a visit.  I know there have been a few "cousin reunions" held at the old homestead, though I've never had the pleasure of an invitation.  Maybe someday I'll get out there, reunion or otherwise.

Old Saybrook, Connecticut:  It was here that Joseph Ingham the weaver first settled in America around 1640.

Cato, New York:  Another site of Ingham interest, this is where William Ingham set up shop around 1814, and he made a fortune running a general store.  Later on, his sons overextended themselves and lost pretty much everything.  William's youngest son, Albert, was the grandfather of my adopted great-grandfather.

Hagerstown, Maryland:  It was here that the Forthmans first settled in America before the Civil War.  My great-grandfather, William Edward Forthman, was born here in 1863.  His mother, Ann Creager, was also from Hagerstown, and her ancestors settled there before the Revolution.

There are plenty of other locations of note in my family, though these are a few that stand out the most.  It may be little more than a daydream to think of visiting these distant towns and cities, though perhaps I'll go one day.  Only, what ever will I find when I get there?

Dining Etiquette at the Counts Farm

James Wilson Counts was my great-great grandfather, born November 14, 1856, the son of Sylvester Tobias Counts and Mary Ann Wilson.  He grew up in more formal times in Ohio, and later moved to Kansas where he owned a 160 acre farm near Baldwin City and raised his 6 children, one of which was my semi-famous great-grandfather, George Sylvester Counts.

James Wilson Counts
Circa 1901



From what I've learned, James was a strict man, who adhered to a polite code of conduct.  He expected human beings to behave in a certain manner, and it was uncouth or even sinful to deviate from these patterns. George S. Counts had an interesting story he liked to share concerning his father, and he used it as something of an object lesson.

Harvest time, circa 1900:  The Counts farm hired a few field hands to help bring in the crops.  They purportedly paid well, despite the low income of the farm, so there was no shortage of volunteers.  These seasonal hands ate with the family as honored guests, and were expected to behave as any guest would in those times.

During lunch one day, one of the farm hands wanted to get a roll from a basket that was just out of reach.  James asked that one of the other people seated at the table kindly pass the rolls, but the impertinent farm hand claimed "I can get it," took out his knife, and stabbed a roll with the extra length of the blade making up the distance.  A dead silence fell over the table, and the stabber was fired on the spot.  He was banned forever from the Counts farm for his brash behavior.

This is one of many stories my father heard as a child, one he failed to take to heart.  Unlike James, my father was never so puritanical, and would be more the sort to stab the roll than fire an employee for helping himself.  Strict behavior seems to be something society in general has abandoned these days.

This was something George S. Counts used as a cautionary tale, advocating his descendants toward order, so I can't say if it's 100% accurate.  It does seem like the sort of attitude that God-fearing Methodist farmers would've had during the turn of the last century, so I wouldn't doubt if it actually happened more or less the way it was told.

Tucker Time

This Family Saturday column, I'm going to talk briefly about a family line I've only begun to research. There are quite a few Tuckers on my father's side of the family, and I hope to uncover more about this particular branch someday, though time constraints currently make it a low priority.

The most recent Tucker in my family is Florella Amanda Tucker, born March 30, 1828 in Jackson, PA (about 30 miles north of Scranton). She was the daughter of Simeon Tucker and Lois Guile. She married Theodore Beza Gamble, and their daughter was my great-great grandmother, Mertie Florella Gamble, who married James Wilson Counts.

When I first ran into Tuckers in my family, I wondered if I might be related to Preston Tucker, the little-known car developer who was shafted by the "Big Three" auto makers in the late 1940's. He was a visionary in the field of car design, which is why the powers-that-be of the day fought to put him out of business. My father was very much a "car guy," so I learned a thing or two about Preston Tucker from an early age, though it wasn't until I saw the factual movie starring Jeff Bridges that I came to understand and respect his genius.

Well, as interesting as that may be, I haven't been able to trace any relation to Preston Tucker. His ancestors showed up in America a couple of hundred years after mine, so if we are distantly related, I'd have to trace his roots back into the 1500's, or perhaps even earlier. If that's even possible, I doubt it would be feasible to consider him a cousin at that point. Oh, well...

There are literally thousands of less distant cousins on my Tucker line, and as I said, I have yet to trace many of them. Simeon apparently had seven brothers and sisters, and his parents (both Tuckers, 3rd cousins once removed) had many siblings of their own. I really hope to put together a more comprehensive picture in the future, but at present most of my research has been vertical, as I sought to trace my own lineage.



Tucker Family
Coat of Arms



I've been able to trace the family line back to the 1400's in England, but the line could go centuries beyond that. There are apparently baptismal records for the ancient Tuckers going back almost to the Doomsday invasion of 1066. As impressive as that may be, there are a few lines of my family which can be traced even further (though I still have much work to do on them, so I won't go into detail just yet).

The first Tucker in my family who came to America was Robert Tucker (b. June 8, 1604 /died March 9, 1681). He came from Kent, England. He settled in Norfolk county Massachusetts sometime in the 1630's and married Elizabeth Allen in 1651. He may have had a previous wife, as his younger son, Benjamin, was born in 1646, while son Ephraim was born in 1653. Picking through various data, I have found mention of Robert being married to another woman named Susan Hyde, though information is limited, little more than a footnote. It is possible that Robert and Elizabeth had lived in sin for years and got married later, though it's a highly unlikely circumstance in the puritanical environment of early Massachusetts. Either way, one of the two sons I'm descended from was Elizabeth Allen's offspring.

Ephraim Tucker (b. August 27, 1653 /died October 1, 1736) married Hannah Gulliver on September 27, 1688 in Milton Massachusetts. Their son, Stephen Tucker Sr. (b. April 8, 1691) married Hannah Belcher on August 30, 1716 in Milton, MA. Their son, Stephen Tucker, Jr. (b. April 7, 1731 /died August 13, 1766) married Mary Brown in Preston City, Connecticut. Their son, James Tucker (b. October 29, 1762 /died September 18, 1841), was the father of Simeon.

Back to Robert Tucker's older son; Benjamin Tucker, Sr. (b. March 8, 1646 /died February 27, 1713) married Ann Payson in 1669 in Roxbury, Massachusetts. Their son, Benjamin Tucker, Jr. (b. March 8, 1670 /died October 8, 1740), married Elizabeth Williams in 1696, also in Roxbury, MA. Their son, Benjamin Tucker III (b. March 5, 1703 /died January 20, 1761), married Mary Warren in 1729. Their son, Benjamin Tucker IV (b. January 23, 1734 /died September 13, 1806), married Martha Davis on December 14, 1760. Their daughter, Sarah Angell Tucker (b. November 29, 1769 /died January 8, 1842), was the mother of Simeon.

So, bringing us up to the cousins marrying, James Tucker married Sarah Angell Tucker on November 5, 1795 in Charlemont, Massachusetts. They moved to Halifax Center, in Windham county Vermont, which is about 10 miles north of their marriage place, and Simeon was born there in 1804.

It's not the most comprehensive posting I've made about my family research, but it's a good basis for further investigation. I hope you have found something of interest in it.

George & The Pheasant

Week 2 of "Family Sundays" takes us to my father's side of the family, and a story about his grandfather, the venerable George Sylvester Counts.

In recent years, George S. Counts is a name that has largely been forgotten. The vast majority of people scratch their heads when you mention his name, having no knowledge of this man who wrote dozens of nonfiction works, and played a key role in training many of the "activist" teachers of the 1960's. In his time, he was very influential in various political and educational circles, though today he's become little more than a footnote in history.

George S. Counts
in "The Colorado Daily"
July 25, 1958

I believe this marginalization of George S. Counts is due to the fact that there is little spoken of his "human" side. All you ever read about him are articles concerning his professional work, which isn't something that interests most people. The person behind the professor has been hidden from view. I know some of this may have been his desire, as he preferred to be an agent of social progress, and sometimes his personality and personal behavior worked contrary to the future he sought to shape. Therefore, many of the more interesting parts of his life are currently untold.

As one of his few descendants, I think it's a shame we don't have detailed accounts of his early life, and no one ever did an "after hours" look at his later years. All I know comes from a handful of stories that I've heard from my father, his grandson. During his early years, my father spent a lot of time with "Grand-Pappy" Counts, learning bits of family lore and getting to know the man outside the classroom.

Over the coming months, I'll relate a few interesting tales about George S. Counts, but to start I'd like to tell a tale very few have ever heard.

One summer morning in 1951, my father accompanied George on a short drive to the local store, to buy the newspaper. On the way, they saw a ring-neck pheasant standing by the side of the road; not an uncommon thing to see in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, though what George decided to do about it isn't so ordinary. He decided he wanted to eat that bird, so the car took a quick detour. Swerving onto the shoulder, he whacked the bird with his front bumper, apparently killing it. After retrieving the bird and tossing it onto the back seat, George and my father continued to the gas station, where George got out to buy his paper.

As my father waited in the car for George to return, the pheasant came back to life. It had only been stunned by the impact, and was now screaming and flopping around inside the car. My father was only five years old at the time, but was understandably concerned. It wasn't exactly hunting season, and he didn't want his grand-pappy to get into trouble for attacking this bird. There was only one thing my father could do. He strangled the pheasant with his bare hands, completing the job George had sought to accomplish.

A few minutes later, George returned with his paper and drove home. My father never told him about the pheasant's untimely revival.

This story may seem a bit fantastic, but my father is not one to embellish or invent stuff, so I accept it as truth. If I asked him for greater details, he could probably tell me the make and model of the car George was driving, and even identify the route they took. His memory is fairly impressive, though often guarded. I'm not the sort to grill him about such things, and simply listen when he is of a mind to relate something of interest.

So, what does this story tell us about George S. Counts? I'll leave that for you to decide, though I will say that a little anecdote like this can give some interesting perspective on a man who is generally seen as a stuffy intellectual of a bygone era. Some people might think this sort of thing is best left forgotten, as it doesn't fit the popular image that has been created around George S. Counts, though I beg to differ. I personally feel events like these are the most important aspects of his life, or any person's life. They make him a real person, not just some notation in a text book, and that can be the difference between fame and the forgotten man.

If only more of these tidbits could be told, then perhaps he would be better remembered.