Way back in the day, I wrote a column for Ancestry Magazine called “Found,” and I thought it would be fun to share some of them again – partly because it can be interesting to see how genealogical research was done in the not-too-distant past and partly because there still may be some resources and techniques that could come in handy today. I hope you’ll enjoy the first of these below – one which originally appeared in May-June 2006.
From America to Israel and Back Again
Welcome
Welcome to the inaugural article of Found, a column that’s all about rescuing orphan heirlooms! What’s an orphan heirloom? Any item that’s strayed from the hands of the family of origin. It could be the beautiful Victorian photo album you spotted at your favorite antiques store, that family Bible you spotted on eBay, or the old photos you found in the attic of the fixer-upper you just bought. However it happens, you’d be surprised how many people wind up with other people’s stuff.
In this column, I’ll take up the hunt to track down “rightful owners” for items submitted by readers. No, you don’t have to send the actual item. Just drop me an email describing the treasure you’ve found and how you came into possession of it (photo attachments welcome). Let me know about any family or other details available, such as names, dates and places. I’ll go into detective mode to find an appropriate home – usually a descendant of the first owner(s) – and you’ll return it. Then I’ll write about the sleuthing trail followed to locate the happy recipient. With a bit of luck, you’ll learn some tricks for rescuing a few orphan heirlooms yourself, should you feel so inspired. And not so incidentally, these little tricks are handy for conventional genealogy as well.
1940s Photo Album
So let’s start with one of the most contemporary and far-flung rescues I’ve ever done. It involves a photo album from the 1940s. Even if there weren’t some dates scattered throughout the album, the images themselves would have made this easy to deduce. I don’t often tackle such “young” objects, but this was especially intriguing because of the story behind it.
1940’s Photo Album
Chana Saadia wrote that her mother had come across the album on a street in Jerusalem about nine years ago. The owner’s name was clearly displayed, but no one in the area had ever heard of the fellow. Several years ago, Chana’s mother passed away, and she received many of her mother’s possessions, including this album. Captions on some of the photos suggested a connection to Brooklyn, New York at one time, so Chana wrote to me wondering if perhaps I could locate the original owner. How could I resist such a tempting invitation? The hunt was on!
A Good Start
I was fortunate to have many more clues than I usually start with. I had a name – Newton Rodman – and while the surname was not especially uncommon, the first name was somewhat unusual. I also had a location. In fact, I had several locations. A link to Brooklyn was apparent, but it appeared that the owner had also lived in Washington, D.C. and traveled elsewhere.
Newton Rodman
And I had a relationship and a half. By this I mean that I could tell that the owner had a brother named Howard – and while I had a photo of his mother, I didn’t know her name. But I could at least tell that she had lived in America at some point, so it was likely that there was a paper trail somewhere in the U.S., even though the album had been found in Israel. And finally, I had a timeframe. I guesstimated that the original owner would now be in his 80s.
To the Internet!
My first instinct was to jump on Ancestry.com to search the 1930 census. The owner would have been a youngster at the time, and I hoped that by focusing on New York and using his unusual first name, I might be able to surface him quickly. Luck was with me, and I quickly found my subject, along with his brother Howard. I now knew I was looking for a gentleman who should be about 82.
I also discovered that Howard was a few years older and that the brothers’ parents had been born in Russia and Argentina. And of course, I had the parents’ names and rough years of birth – a solid jump forward.
What Next?
I had a good fix on the owner’s birth family, but I was doubtful that I would still find anyone in Brooklyn today. After all, the album had wandered, as had the owner, so where was everyone today?
sample page from photo album
I decided to focus on Howard first. Unfortunately, I quickly located him in both the Social Security Death Index (SSDI) and the California Death Index. He had passed away about 20 years ago, but the California index provided another helpful clue – the mother’s maiden name, a highly unusual name I had never encountered before. On the down side, I was now dealing with a family with connections to Israel, New York, California, Russia and Argentina. I checked the SSDI for the album owner himself, and was relieved to find no likely entry, but was that because he was hale and hearty or because he had moved overseas at some point? Was I wasting my time focusing on the U.S.?
The Benefits of an Unusual Name
I decided to play a long shot and search on the mother’s unusual maiden name to see if anyone had uploaded a tree for this family. For families with deep, colonial roots, there are usually multiple trees, if only due to the sheer number of descendants, but those of us with more recent immigrant roots are not as well represented in such databases yet. Still, it was worth a try.
Nothing popped up on Ancestry, but there was a hit in OneWorldTree. It referred me to another online tree that had the mother’s first name as Hattie instead of Hettie, but the other details showed that I definitely had the right family.
Back to Basics
Armed with this correction to the mother’s first name, I did another general search and quickly found her in the SSDI. She had died in Brooklyn several decades ago, so apparently, not everyone in the family had dispersed far and wide. Maybe the album owner was in the U.S. – and not even as far removed as California.
At this point, I searched Ancestry.com’s Phone and Address Directory. Several candidates popped up, but one in particular caught my eye. It was in New Jersey, not all that far from Brooklyn and not, as it happened, far from where I live. Could my “prey” have been in my backyard all along?
Cold-Calling
Usually, I prefer that submitters make the first contact with a potential recipient, as they’re the one returning the item. I want to be sure that they get the credit! But in this case, Chana lived in Israel, while the possible owner lived a few miles from me. I picked up the phone and explained the peculiar reason for my call.
As sometimes happens, he was doubtful. He didn’t really remember such a photo album and a call from a stranger spouting family details was certainly reason for a degree of caution. But even his limited answers assured me that I had the right fellow. Chana sent the album to me, so I asked for his email address, scanned a few photos, and sent them off. Curiosity overcame his incredulity, so he agreed to meet. The result? The flowers you see in the accompanying photo were sent to me the next day in thanks. And no, he has no clue how his photo album wound up on the streets of Jerusalem, but he’s grateful to Chana for sending a piece of his past back home.
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