#52Ancestors

Here are my blog posts for Amy Johnson Crow's 52 Ancestors project


2021

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The Mystery Photo That Uncovered a Family Tragedy

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  Have you ever found a beautiful photograph in the family collection and wondered, 'Who is this person?' That's exactly what happened to me with this stunning portrait of a young woman.  She looks to be in her early twenties and the portrait looks to have been taken around 1930. And while members of both my Schickler and Christensen families were living in New York City at the time, we haven’t been able to place this young woman in either family. Photograph of Unidentified Woman. Hankins Family papers,  privately held by Patty Hankins of Bethesda, Maryland. On a recent visit to my Aunt Betsey’s, she wondered if the mystery photo could be a portrait of Lester’s fiancée, the opera singer, who died of meningitis the day after my grandparents got married, which is why Uncle Chris couldn’t walk my grandmother down the aisle at her wedding! [1] Apparently my grandmother's parents weren't able to attend the wedding.  This was a family story I’d never heard. The only m...
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Brightening Up A Hard to Read Document in Photoshop or Photoshop Elements

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Sometimes digital images of documents are just hard to read – the paper is gray, the ink close to the same color, and often with ink bleeding through from the back. Brightening up the document and sharpening up the words can sometimes make it easier to read  and hopefully find the clue that helps you break through a brick wall. Sometimes it just takes a couple of minutes in Photoshop or Photoshop Elements to clean it up. The steps are the same – just the commands and menus are in different places. So here are directions for both – I’m using Photoshop 2025 and Photoshop Elements 2023 on a Windows machine. I don’t know the commands on the MAC and don’t have an updated version of Photoshop Elements – so hopefully you can figure it out if my directions don’t match what you see on the screen. Photoshop 2025 1. Open the Document   2.  Use a Levels layer to adjust contrast.     a.  From the layers button on the Layers panel (half black/half white circle – Choo...
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Early 1900s Call Album - Page 5

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  Sometime in about 1904, someone in my grandmother Evelyn Clara Call's (1895-1962) family started taking photographs and placing them in an album. My grandmother was nine in 1904, so she could have been the photographer. Or it could have been one of her parents Charles Joslin Call (1859-1939) or Elizabeth Ann (Coe) Call (1861-1956). Most of the early photographs are of family gatherings and places someone visited. I believe by about 1911, my grandmother was taking the photographs. There are photos of her classmates at Batavia High School and groups of teenage girls.  The Call family live in Stafford, Genesee County, New York. They had a cottage at Silver Lake in Wyoming County. So many of the photos were taken in these locations.  Several of the photographs on page 5 were taken in July 1904 around the time of Robert Call and Charlotte (Joslin) Call's Golden Wedding Anniversary.  Three Generations of the Robert Call Family Very back, standing: Russell White Call, Arc...
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