Here Is Why You Carefully Record Photo Information

Here is a good reason to carefully record all the information you can about a photo.

This woman who posed with her small patch of flowers for this photo was identified only as Aunt Howell, an aunt of N.B. "Bonie" Pierce (1880-1964).

Here are some things you can record that may prove helpful in your family history research:

Date you record the following information

Photograph owner’s name

Address

Telephone number

About the photo print

• Condition
• Type of image
• Size (Height x Width)
• Type of mount or paper and thickness
• Original or copy print
• Date of copy print
• Whereabouts of negative

About the photographer

• Photographer’s name
• Photographer’s imprint
• Dates of operation

About the content of the photo

• Names and birthdates of the people in the photo
• Location the photograph was taken
• Props or background
• Costume description
• Costume time frame

Other information you may have

Do you appear in photos in which you can no longer identify yourself accurately?

Do you appear in some childhood group photos in which you can no longer identify yourself accurately? This can easily happen in photos of brothers or sisters who resemble each other and are close in age.

In the case of the above photo, confusion of seems to have occurred because the two girls on the right have similar hair styles, even though they are of different ages and heights. And they are not in same family.

The children of N.B. "Bonie" Pierce and Julia L. Moody often played with the children of their neighbor, the Brannan family.

Beatrice Pierce Poore (1921-1993) identified the children, from left, as: Mallory Brannan, Calvin Brannan, Raymond Pierce (1923-1981), an unidentifed Brannan child being held by Beatrice Pierce and Laverne Brannan.

But Mallory Brannan identified the girl holding the child as Laverne, the child as May Brannan and the last girl as Beatrice.

One clue as to whether Beatrice or Mallory was correct in their identifications comes from the fact that the

Beatrice Pierce school photo

girl on the right is wearing glasses. Beatrice suffered from poor vision and wore glasses with thick lenses. Another photo of Bea wearing glasses appears to confirm Mallory's identification of the children.

The photo also gives a glimpse of what the backyard and back of the Pierce home looked like. I think this is the Pierce home, but I'm not totally sure. Since the Pierce family took lots of photos and this one was in the family photos, it seems reasonable to believe this is the Pierce home.

Does anyone recognize the equipment in the background? The tower appears to be a water tank.

Mother and Child Photos May Speak to More Than Parenthood

Almost every family has photos of a proud mother holding one of her children. Take another look at such photos. They may tell you more than just that a mother loves her child.

Julia Lavinia Moody Pierce (1886-1965) is holding her son Wilson Taft Pierce (1910-1983) in the above photo. She is wearing a light-colored blouse with a high, lace collar. Baby "W.T.," as he was always called, is also wearing white in what appears to be a christening gown.

Julia and her husband Napoleon Bonaparte "Bonie" Pierce were members of the Methodist Church, where christening is a practiced. This photo then would tend to confirm that the Pierces had a strong faith and were bringing up their children in it.

The photographer's imprint is Novelty Studio, 205 Dauphin St., Mobile, Alabama. Do you have any information about this studio and its photographers?

How often do you take photos of friends and family doing their jobs?

We often take photos at family gatherings, birthdays and holidays. But how often do you take photos of friends and family doing their jobs?

We spend a third or more of our lives at work. That work provides our means for living and it is often the place where we meet our spouses and make friends. Yet we rarely make a photographic record of what we do and who we work with.

In the above photo, delivery driver Malcolm Johnson stands with his foot on the running board of his truck outside the Reservoir Inn, owned by N.B. "Bonie" Pierce. Malcolm became a long-time friend of the Pierce family. The boy in the photo is not identified.

Malcolm's white uniform, the white truck, and the "Where Quality and Purity Count" slogan on the truck suggest that he delivered milk.

The Reservoir Inn was also a favorite after-work watering hole for many men who worked at dairies between Forest Hill, where the Reservoir Inn was located outside the western city limits of Mobile, and the farming community of Wilmer, Ala., near the Mississippi state line.

Do you have photos of family and friends at work? What do the photos tell you about them?

Centennial Good Time to Research Your Great War Ancestor's Military Service

Statement of Service Cards for my World War I
ancestors from Jasper and Jones counties, Mississippi.
Above, John H. Poore. Below Alonzo W. Geiger. 

In 2014, European nations will begin marking the centennial of the Great War. The war began in Europe on July 28, 1914, but the United States didn’t enter what was supposed to be “The War to End All Wars” until April 17, 1917.

This centennial observance is a good time to begin research into the service of your World War I doughboy ancestor.

More than 4.7 million American men and women served in the regular U.S. Armed Services, National Guard units or were drafted into other units. The war resulted in 53,402 American soldiers killed in battle, another 63,114 dead from disease and other causes and about 205,000 wounded.

As with almost all family history research, start with records that your family may hold such as discharge papers or an obituary.

Fortunately, Mississippi researchers have some excellent resources online. The Mississippi Department of Archives and History and FamilySearch worked together to create the Mississippi World War I Statement of Service Cards and Indices.

These include records listing Mississippi veterans along with statement of service cards providing details

about their service. You can search an alphabetical list of veterans or search names by county.

Final pay voucher for Alonzo W. Geiger,
the "A.W.G." in the second entry.

You need the basic information about your ancestor’s service that these indices provide for a successful search of national records. You need to know, for example, if your doughboy served in the cavalry, infantry, field artillery, machine gun battalion, engineers and so on. Try to find out the company, troop or battery to which your ancestor was assigned.

After you have some basic facts you can request your ancestor’s military service records online, by mail or by fax from the National Archives.

But be aware that you are likely to run into the same problem as with getting most other military records—the 1973 fire that destroyed U.S. Army personnel records created from 1912 to 1963. But the fire didn’t damage U.S. Navy and U.S. Marine Corps personnel files.

The fire left a big gap in service records, but National Archives has other records that may help in your research. Such alternative records include, for example, final pay vouchers. These can include such information as:

• Name
• Service number
• Date when last paid
• Rank at discharge
• Overseas service

For a fuller discussion of the other records available at the National Archives, read They Answered the Call Military Service in the United States Army During World War I, 1917-1919 by Mitchell Yockelson available online.

Construction of troop quarters at Camp Shelby near Hattiesburg, Mississippi, in 1917. Note the pre-fabricated hut structures on the trucks. Camp Shelby opened July 1917. Photo from Mississippi Armed Forces Museum, Camp Shelby.

Do you have an ancestor whose career tells the history of an industry?

Charles E. Barnhart (1913-2004) poses for a photo at the Neiman-Marcus store in Dallas, Texas, on October 4, 1958. Charles was married to Velma Moree Pierce (1913-1993), daughter of N.B. "Bonie" and Julia Moody Pierce.

Charles had apparently been in town for a football game. On the back of the photo the score was recorded as "SMU 6 vs ND 14." Charles worked football games as part of his job as a sound engineer with CBS radio.

Charles led an interesting career working for WBBM radio, the CBS station in Chicago. He began his career in the early days of commercial radio in 1931 and joined WBBM 10 years later. Below is an article about Charles written by Jay Grelen in The Mobile Press Register in February 1996.

Do you have an ancestor whose career tells the history of an industry?

Pumps, Tires and Automobiles Kept Our Ancestors' Lives Rolling

I'm fascinated by how many of my ancestors were connected with gasoline service stations or other auto service businesses. The industry provided them good livings or got them started in life.

The above photo of N.B. "Bonie" Pierce's new gas station and convenience store in Mobile, Ala., was probably taken shortly after it opened in 1940. Bonie called his business The Reservoir Inn because it was located across the street from the historic Bienville Reservoir, actually not more than a raised pond used for water storage.

The store on the north side of Moffett Road near Forest Hill Drive sold Sinclair gasoline. The little sign on the right pump warns that Sinclair HC contains lead. The pump on the left must have pumped unleaded gas.

On the front of the Inn are signs for Opaline motor oil, a Sinclair product. Barely visible on the right side of the photo is a sign for Quaker State Motor Oil.

With the U.S. entry into World War II on Dec. 7, 1941, service stations such as this one would feel the effects of a shortage of rubber and gasoline. The federal government ordered nationwide gas rationing to begin on Dec. 1, 1942.

The Reservoir Inn survived the war and for many years afterward.

Do you have ancestors who were connected with the auto service industry?