Tintypes

Want to see one of my favorite old family photos?  It's from 1868.  

1868: My great-great grandmother Fannie Naomi Abby Gibbs, about 3 years old and her older brother.

Actually, my family has several pictures dating from the 1860s.  However this one stands out since it includes children.  Who are they?  

Family member name: Fannie Naomi Abby Gibbs

Lifetime: July 15, 1865 (born 155 years ago today) - July 11, 1941
Tree branch: Smith
Relation: My 2x great-grandmother (my dad's mom's dad's mom)

Family member name: Lysander Gibbs

Lifetime: 1856-1923
Tree branch: Smith
Relation: My 3rd great-uncle (my dad's mom's dad's mom's brother)

I love this picture.  It's a tintype.  What is that?

According to The Science and Media Museum:

A very underexposed negative image was produced on a thin iron plate. It was blackened by painting, lacquering or enamelling, and coated with a collodion photographic emulsion. The dark background gave the resulting image the appearance of a positive.

Believe it or not, that is the most non-technical definition I could find of a tintype. I really still have no idea what that means, but here's what I learned about tintypes:

• Tiny, usually 2x3 inches
• Made of thin iron, not flexible
• Mounted in paper or cardboard cases
• Developed in a darkroom in just minutes (a big advancement for the time)
• Inexpensive
• In use in the 1860s and 1870s

Notice this tintype has been ever so slightly hand tinted.  Do you notice the kids' pink cheeks? 

And how cute are they?  Isn't it great to see pictures of your grandparents and other ancestors as children? It reminds us that they had lives before we knew them.  Unfortunately, this darling girl's life probably didn't turn out the way she wanted it to.  Stay tuned for an upcoming post...

The Big Reveal

I found a piece of interesting information about my dad's 2x great-grandfather and wanted to tell him in person to see his reaction.

Family member name: Charles H. Smith

Lifetime: 1825 - 1900
Tree branch: Smith
Relation: My 3x great-grandfather (my dad's mom's dad's dad's dad)

I was researching the Smith side of my family, and I found that the Smiths lived in an interesting place.

The next time my dad and step-mom came for a visit, I printed out the 1865 Massachusetts State Census and walked them through the process I had recently completed to let them find the information on their own.  

Here's the video.  I'm pretty sure they didn't see I was recording. :)

So fun!

My 3x great-grandfather was the light keeper of Chatham Light, a famous lighthouse on Cape Cod.  My dad has visited most of New England's lighthouses by land or by kayak, and I knew he was quite familiar with Chatham Light.  So to find out that his direct ancestor (his 2x great-grandfather) lived there and manned the lighthouse for 10 years, from 1862-1872, is pretty cool!  Also, my dad's great grandfather, Nelson, grew up in the light keeper's living quarters.

Why did no one in my family know about this??  Stay tuned.

This is what the Twin Lights in Chatham looked like when our ancestor was light keeper.

1841 brick towers.

To read more about the quest for the Smiths, read my previous blog post here.

Sources
Wikipedia > Chatham Light
National Register of Historic Places in Barnstable County
Tours of Chatham Light

Namesakes: Charlotte Ellen Smith

Installment #2 in my series of namesakes is my paternal grandmother, Charlotte Ellen Smith.  Let's learn about the family members she may have been named after.

Family member name: Charlotte Ellen Smith Webber
Tree branch: Smith
Lifetime: 1915 - 2014
Relation: My grandmother (my dad's mom)

First name: Charlotte

There were two special Charlottes in her parents’ life. Who were they?

Special Charlotte #1:  Her father’s step-grandmother: Charlotte Whitton Gould Hardy Smith

Charles Nelson Smith was my grandmother's father.  His grandmother (Susan Stetson) died before he was born.  But his grandfather remarried just eight months later to a widow named Charlotte Whitton Gould Hardy.  According to the Hardy Family History, her first husband passed away when he was 30 years old aboard a ship bound for San Francisco when a fire destroyed the ship. This Charlotte Hardy Smith was the Smith grandmother that Charles knew from when he was born.  And he grew up nearby his grandparents.  

Did Charlotte treat Charles like he was her own grandchild? Did they have a special relationship? 

Then in 1914, this Charlotte passed away just four months before my grandma was born. Did Charles Nelson Smith want to honor his grandmother's recent passing? If so, he may have named his daughter after her.

Special Charlotte #2:  Her father's aunt: Charlotte H. Morse Gibbs

Uncle Gran (Granville Micah Gibbs) was married to Aunt Lottie (Charlotte Morse).  She seemed to be a favorite among the cousins.  Aunt Lottie was an expert seamstress who would make clothing for family members.

Was Aunt Lottie close with her nephew, Charles and his wife Florence? Could my grandmother be named after her great aunt?  

By naming her Charlotte, they got two for the price of one!

Middle name: Ellen

This is an easy one.  Ellen was the name of my grandmother's maternal grandma, Ellen Fripp Bromley, who was very close to her.

According to the US Social Security Administration, Charlotte was the sixth most popular name for a baby girl in 2019.  Wow, what a comeback!

Sources:

Hardy and Hardie, page 6 - A scanned online PDF file of the Hardy family history

US Social Security Administration - Popular baby names

"My Memories of the Family" - a typed paper copy in my possession written by Pearl K. (Gibbs) Thomas

New England, Select United Methodist Church Records, 1787-1922 page 60 via Ancestry.com

The Snow Row

Do you want to go kayaking?  In Boston Harbor? In March?  Kinda frosty, right? Why would someone do that year after year?  The Snow Row!

A yearly boat race is held in Hull, Massachusetts and it's called the Snow Row.  It is for many kinds of boats without a sail or a motor, including kayaks. It seems that the race was named because most participants need to row, and there's usually snow on the ground in March in Boston.  But no!  It was named after a man named Edward Rowe Snow.

Edward Rowe Snow was born in Massachusetts in 1902.  He wrote over 40 books, mainly chronicling New England maritime history.  The Hull Lifesaving Museum is also devoted to preserving New England maritime history, and they sponsor the Snow Row as a tribute to Edward.

My dad has been racing in the Snow Row for over 20 years. It's become a family tradition.  I've had the chance to be the front person in his tandem kayak on a few occasions. We've been known to bring home gold or silver medals.  Here we are.

Imagine my surprise when I was doing research on my family tree and I found a Snow! I decided to trace the Snow family and found we have the same Pilgrim ancestor as Edward Rowe Snow. I should have known that all people in Massachusetts are related somehow.

Family member name: Edward Rowe Snow

Lifetime: 1902 - 1982
Tree branch: Smith
Relation: My 9th cousin, 3x removed

My 11th great-grandfather is Stephen Hopkins of the Mayflower.  Stephen Hopkins is Edward Rowe Snow's 8th great-grandfather.

Yeah, we're family.

My dad is all signed up for the Snow Row again in 2018.  I'm sad I can't join him in the race this year.  But now he has an added bonus of knowing the race is named after his cousin Ed.

While telling my dad about this research, he said he met Mr. Snow in the early 1970s while taking a Boston Harbor Cruise.  Here is the famous Edward Rowe Snow.  Photo credit: Dad.

Building a 19th century resumé

Was Grandpa Smith a go-getter? An intentional seeker of new horizons? Or did life just happen? You decide as you read his resumé below.

Family member name: Charles H. Smith
Tree branch: Smith
Relation: My 3x great grandpa.  My dad's mom's dad's dad's dad.

The carpenter - Young Charles' first occupation was a carpenter. He lived in Chatham, Massachusetts which is the elbow of Cape Cod. (Make a fist and flex your bicep. That's Cape Cod. Now use your other hand to point at the flexed arm's elbow.  That's Chatham.) Chatham was a fishing and whaling town, so perhaps he made a good living repairing boats. We can't really know for sure. But this skill surely would have helped him in his next jobs.

The lighthouse keeper - Light house keepers have always held a beloved position in their community. Their role was to keep the town's mariner sons and husbands safe.  Grandpa Smith was entrusted with this position for over ten years, three of which were during the Civil War.  Normally lighthouse families were isolated because their homes are often located on islands or on remote peninsulas. Not so with Chatham Light. It is on Main Street in the middle of town. So I imagine their interaction with the community was as normal as their neighbors. Speaking of neighbors, Angeline Nickerson lived next door with her children. She is a local Chatham legend. Her husband was the light keeper until his untimely death. She took over the post and "manned" (pun intended) the station for 10 years until she was about 50 years old.

The twin lights as they would have looked in the 1860s.

I have yet to locate the lighthouse logs from Grandpa Smith's tenure. The logs generally recorded how many ships passed by daily, significant storms, sea rescues and lighthouse repairs. The Chatham Historical Society does not have them, the Chatham Eldredge Library does not have them. I have not yet contacted the current lighthouse keeper (the US Coast Guard), but often the logs were thrown away when the Coast Guard took over in 1943.  The result of these missing logs is that we know almost nothing about his service. In fact, he is barely (if ever) even mentioned in books about lighthouse histories. But he's on Wikipedia, so... it's all good.


The inn keeper - Grandpa and Grandma Smith transitioned from the rescue business to the hospitality business.  The Chatham Monitor local newspaper shows the chain of events.

Advertisement for Nauset House

Newspaper announces sale of Nauset House Aug 1872

Monthly advertisement for Nauset House

Nauset House is often listed in the paper as hosting town events on their large front lawn.  Unfortunately, Grandma Smith died just three years later, yet was remembered as a gracious hostess to town visitors in her obituary. 

Nauset House is still an Inn 150 years later (not run by family members that I know of). Consider staying there on your next trip to the Cape.


The tax collector - Holy career change Batman!

Here is Grandpa Smith's obituary, kindly sent to me by the Chatham Historical Society.

Looks like as the new tax collector, he whipped them into shape! Was he the type of person who could recognize a problem, devise a solution and had the power and energy to implement it? I admire those people.

From his various careers over his lifetime, it seems that Grandpa Smith was always reinventing himself, a catchphrase from the 2010s. What a diverse and interesting person.

Hingham

Hingham, Massachusetts holds a special place in my heart. It’s where I would visit my Grandma and Grandpa Webber and spend much time with my two cousins. My dad grew up in Hingham. I had no idea of our connection to Hingham other than knowing that my grandparents moved their young family there in 1952/53.

Family member name: Ralph Smith
Tree branch: Smith
Relation: My 10x great grandpa.  My dad's mom's dad's dad's dad’s dad’s dad's dad's dad's dad's dad

Why did my grandparents move to Hingham? They grew up in Needham and New Bedford. Maybe they just wanted to be commuting distance to Boston?  My Grandma Webber’s maiden name was Smith. Normally a difficult surname to research, but there have been mountains of information on this family with deep New England roots.

When reading a history of the Smith family in New England, many generations lived on Cape Cod, in the towns of Chatham and Eastham. But when going back further, a Ralph Smith lived in Hingham for almost 20 years, from1635 to 1653. He lived on Main Street and ran a store. When researching the history of the town of Hingham, it was founded in 1635. In fact, Ralph Smith, his three brothers and four other men originally arrived there in 1633 to begin clearing land and building huts in order to cultivate the land the following spring. Though it was called Bare Cove at that time, when they set up a town government, they renamed the area Hingham. Why? They had just arrived in the new world from their hometown - Hingham, England.

It’s so exciting that my dad grew up in the town that was founded by his direct ancestor, who was a pioneer of distinction.

Here is a plaque placed by the Association of the Descendants of Ralph Smith.  Disclaimer: I did not take this picture.  I copied it from another website. :)  But I hope to visit it someday.

Genealogy Jackpot

The dilemma
Almost 7 years. I have been researching my family for 7 years. There was one name that I never touched.  My grandma's maiden name was Smith. The misconception is that such common names would yield so many search results that finding your relative is like finding a needle in a haystack.

The rationalization
Why should I even try? It's the road leading to frustration and disappointment. I have other family members to research anyway. Yeah.

The glutton for punishment
Ok I might as well take a look. Zero expectations.

The search
1. Starting point: My dad's mom's maiden name was Charlotte Ellen Smith. Her father's name was Charles Nelson Smith. That's all I know.
2. Hold on.  I remember receiving info about this family once. In an email, I found that Charles Nelson was born in Chatham Massachusetts and his father's name was Nelson. (Makes sense). And his middle initial was F.
3. Ok Ancestry.com, whatcha got? Don't fail me now. I entered in the above info and got a hit! Nelson F's father, born in the same town, was named Charles H. Smith (Makes sense). Yay! I just found my 3x great grandpa. There's the family in the Mass state census of 1865. Nelson F is 6 years old.

The joy
What else can I learn from this census?  What was Charles Smith's occupation?  My ancestors were usually shop keepers. I had no expectations, but maybe a mariner? I had to make sure I was reading this right...  Do you see it?

 "Light keeper".  Cue the inspirational music.  Charles H. Smith was the lighthouse keeper of Chatham Light on Cape Cod from 1862-1872. His children, including Nelson F, grew up in the light house quarters. I now need to know everything about this entire family, Chatham Light and their whole life. Stay tuned.


The lesson
Don't skip the Smiths! If you have other family names, dates or auxiliary details, you may find a genealogy jackpot.