Genealogy Reviews Online

Almost Wordless Wednesday - Who Are These People?

This photo came from the album of my father's oldest brother (Domenic Agazio).  I really have no idea who these two women are other than the names Victoria and Matilda.  It's possible they were my paternal grandparents neighbors.  One of the witnesses on my grandparent's 1913 marriage certificate was Vittoria Marsella, so this is a possibility. Regardless of who it is, I find it an interesting photo - the older woman actually has a slight smile on her face.

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Who is This Guy?

 

This is probably one of the strangest photos I have.  I don't know who this young man is, but I know he's from my maternal side (Zaring).  Here we have a goofy looking kid of about 15 or 16 standing in front of a dirty crumpled flag that's touching the ground.  In trying to date the photo, I noticed the flag has 48 stars and this occured between 4 July 1912-3 July 1959.  Based on where the photo was in my grandmother's album, I suspect it's closer to 1912.  Obviously the kid is dressed in his Sunday best including a coat, tie, and hat - what I can't figure out are the combat type of boots and the dusty/dirty high water pants.

I'm pretty sure he's related to me, but I'm not too sure I'm happy with this based on the strange photo...although I bet future genealogy guys in my family will say the same thing about me.

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4th Edition of "Who Are These People?"

I want to know who these guys are that my father (Louie Agazio) is hanging out with.  I like this photo because it shows a little bit of his wild side and I suspect if this Italian American group were walking down the street people would cross to the other side.  The time frame is probably after World War II (1946-47), because my father is wearing his Military Police shades - he never wore sunglasses in pre-World War II photos.  The only friend from his younger days I met was the tall guy on the right - Jim Tito.  He must have been a close friend because he became my Godfather when I was born about a decade after this photo was taken.  We used to visit him often and to the best of my knowledge he was the only friend I met from my father's younger days.  I used to think these visits were boring because all the grown-up did was was talk and my brother and I were left with not much to do.  Boy I wish I would have listened - I bet there were some great stories told. 

The photo was probably in Colorado because, with the exception of my father's war time service, he didn't travel out of the state very much.  They were probably on an outing in the close by mountains based on the background, but because there are no captions, I can't be sure.  What really intrigues about this photo is my father looks almost exactly like my brother did at the same age (around 26-27) - with the dark complexion and dark wavy hair.  I even see a bit of myself in him except I have blond hair (ok, it's getting a little gray) and blue eyes.  I don't know who the other 4 guys are, but I sure wish I did.         

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3rd Edition of "Who Are These People?"

I was really looking forward to this edition because it involves one of my all-time favorite family photos. As I was preparing to write this post a few days ago, a couple of Google searches lead me to information that solved my mystery, but I decided to write the article anyway.  To the left is the family of John Thomas Hartford (1869-1916) and Mary Elizabeth Lamping (1863-1928), and I never get tired of looking at all the details in this photo.  I wish it were in color, but I guess I can't have everything.  The location is probably in the Cripple Creek/Goldfield area of Teller County, Colorado.  The little girl in the lower right hand corner holding the doll is my grandmother (Anna C. Hartford, 1904-2002) and I estimate she's about 4 or 5 years old making the year the photo was taken around 1908-1909.  I think it's interesting how all of the toys are displayed, and how the family pets are also included - a dog is on the floor and the boy in the back row is holding a cat.  I also think it's interesting how all of the religious relics are displayed on the shelves - this was an Irish Catholic family.

The mystery centers not on the people who are posing, but on the portraits hanging on the wall behind the family...who are these people?  I've always assumed these four photos were the two sets of in-laws (my 2d great grandparents), but I didn't know who was who.  Just before I began writing, I used my great grandmother's name (Mary Elizabeth Lamping) as a search term in Google, and found a site that included the photo on the right.  Look closely...it appears to me the photos on the wall are head shots of the two people displayed on the right.  It almost looks like they took the photo of these two people and made the portraits hanging on the wall behind the family.  The clothes are the same, the expressions are the same, and I'm certain the people are the same.  According to the caption on the photo I found via Google, two of the portraits are Joseph Anthony Lamping II (1810-1887) and Susan Josephine Godard (1820-1897).  I assume the other two must be Thomas Hartford (1826-1911) and Isabel Rafferty (1824-1901). 

This stroke of my charmed genealogical luck allowed me to identify two of these four people, and then make a pretty good assumption about the other two.  While examining the family photo, I did noticed there are two other, not very clear, portraits on the left adjacent wall...hmmm, I wonder who they are?

(Click on the photos for a full size view.)

(The photo on the right is from the Park County Archives website where Ken Hicks is identified as the source.  The photo on the left was found in my grandmother's album and the original belongs to my brother and I.)

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2nd Edition of "Who Are These People?"

For the second edition of this little personal series of mine, I chose a photo from one of my maternal grandmother's photo albums.  My grandmother (Anna C. Hartford) was a mountain lady.  She was born in Cripple Creek, Colorado in 1904 and spent most of her life living in the Rocky Mountains.  As a child, she grew up in gold/silver mining communities throughout the Colorado mountains, but her time in the mining camps ended when her father (John Thomas Hartford) died of cancer in 1916 in Goldfield, Colorado.  While my grandmother did live and work in Denver for a time during her first marriage, between the late 1940s and early 1980s she lived in the mountains at various places between Bailey and Grant, Colorado along highway US 285.

The photo of this edition appears fairly old and it's possible these people are family, but I really have no idea.  I'm fairly certain the location of the photo is somewhere around where my grandmother grew up.  On the back it appears my grandmother wrote a note to her mother, but because she glued it into her album I can't completely read it.  From what I can make out she says "Mamma, isn't this one good [un-readable] Charlotte."  I was afraid I'd destroy the picture if I tried scraping anymore of the glue off. 

I don't really know the time frame either.  Since my grandmother's mother (Mary Elizabeth Lamping) died in 1929, I suspect my grandmother wrote the note sometime between 1920-1929...just a guess on my part.  On the other hand, the clothes the people are wearing look like the 19th century Victorian style.  The photo itself is kind of old fashion with the group posed outside and no smiles at all.  I think it's interesting three of them are looking at the camera, but the lady sitting and the man on the right are looking away in the same direction.

It sure would be fun to know who these people are and why they were important to my grandmother.

(Click on the photos to get full size)

Also see:

First Edition of "Who Are These People?"

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1st Edition of "Who Are These People?"

I'm always disappointed when I thumb through the various family photo albums I've inherited over the years because I see so many unknown people.   I wonder why my family members felt it was important to include a particular photo in an album.  I have 5 photo albums - two from my maternal grandmother, 2 from my mother, and 1 from my father.  All 5 have labeling, but people usually do this for themselves and not their descendants so many individuals are left unidentified.  I thought it would be fun to post some of these photos and try to tell as much of the story as I can, and who knows...maybe someone in my "vast" readership will recognize them.

The following two photos are from my father's photo album where most center on his 3 years in the Army during World War II.  I remember one day when I was about 11 or 12, I saw my father (Louie Agazio) putting a photo album back into the closet in our family room.  When I asked him what he was doing he very seriously told me to never look at the album he had in his hand.  Of course, this remark made me want to really, really see what was inside.  Later that day, when no one was around, I  sneaked into the closet to take a look, but my father apparently anticipated my sneaking and hid it somewhere else. 

I never thought about it again until a couple of years ago when my brother and I were sorting some of my parents things and there I saw it...the photo album denied to me all those years ago.  I finally got the chance to see those photos he wanted to keep from me.  What did I find?  Lots of pictures of old girl friends!  Most of the photos had labels, but none of the women he thought important enough to include had any so all of them are unknown.

There are three photos in the album of this first woman pictured to the left.  Of course there are no labels, but she did write a few things on the back.  On this particular photo she wrote "To Lou, With all my love forever, Lil xxxxxxx."  On one of the others she wrote something similar, but added "This is not a good one, but I will send you quite a few when I send the others..."  In the other two photos she's posing like a "pin-up" girl in shorts, and a halter top, so these were probably sent to keep him company while he was deployed to the Pacific Theater from 1942-1945.  Unfortunately the letters enclosing these photos were lost to history.  My father was 21 when he was drafted and this woman looks about the same age.  I assume Lil is from Colorado, but there are no dates or names except for her first name.  I've been unable to find anyone who recognizes her, but I'd really like to know who she was.

This second photo shown below really intrigues me.  Again, my father didn't identify her, but she must have meant something to him because it's large and had a page all to itself.  He appears engaged in a very intimate conversation with a waitress in what looks like one of those old Bar and Grills.  I find everything about this photo interesting from the clothes, to the setting, and all of the activity going on around them.  The woman is looking into my father's eyes and has a slight smile on her face appearing happy with this conversion.  My father, who is doing the talking, is definitely not maintaining eye contact with her.  When I zoomed in on her hand, it looks like she has a rubber band around one wrist and the other hand is playing with it...maybe she's a little nervous?  There are no dates on the photo so I don't know if it was before the war or after his return.  I'm inclined to think it was after the war because he looks a bit more mature than in many of his pre-war photos.  My guess is the location of the restaurant was close to his parents farm in Adams County just north of Denver.  I would love to know more about this woman.

That's it for this first edition of "Who are These People?"  I had fun with this post so there will probably be a number 2 next week.

(Click on the photos to get full size)

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