Captain Slatter in the Indexed, Searchable 1931 Canadian Census

This morning's blog post from Gail Dever says that the 1931 Census of Canada is already indexed and searchable on Ancestry! (To see the questions asked, look at Dave Obee's page here.)

I immediately searched Ancestry for hubby's great uncle, the renowned band director of the 48th Highlanders of Toronto. Sure enough, this newly-released 1931 Census record was my top search result.

What did I learn about Capt. John Daniel Slatter (1864-1954)? First, I learned that the handwriting recognition software does an amazingly decent job of interpreting names. Shown in screen capture above, the names in this family are absolutely correct except for Capt. Slatter's--because the software mistook the parenthetical notation (Captain) written after his surname for a middle name "Contan." Not a big deal, but something to watch for.

Aside from that, Capt. Slatter made Canadian $1,200 as Director of Music for the Highlanders in 1930. He owned his 10-room home, valued at Canadian $15,000, had a radio, and the birthplaces of his wife and children are consistent with what I already have documented.

Interesting to discover that he misremembered his mother's birthplace as "Ireland." In fact, I've found her noted in multiple UK Census records as being born in London of Irish-born parents. 

Away I go down the rabbit hole to find more Canadian ancestors in this newly-released Census! 

Hint: If you want to search only that 1931 Census, you can look under the Search drop-down menu along the top of the Ancestry home page. Under search, go to the Ancestry Card Catalog and there you'll find the 1931 Census of Canada, as shown in the image at top of this post. Wishing you luck finding your Canadian ancestors, too. 

Happy 117th Anniversary to My Paternal Grandparents

I'm just finishing a photo book telling the story of my paternal grandparents, Henrietta Mahler (1881-1954) and Isaac Burk (1882-1943). The photo above takes up a full page, but with full names superimposed--the Mahler family, circa 1904. 

I really want descendants to recognize our ancestors, so the book is filled with captioned photos, not just names but dates and places where known. Plus maps showing where our immigrant ancestors were born and where they lived in the Big Apple.

Henrietta (nicknamed "Yetta"), my Dad's mother, is the lovely young lady wearing a light dress in the back row. 

Just a couple of years after this photo was taken, Yetta married Isaac Burk on June 10, 1906, in New York City. 

For this latest photo book, I created a brightly-colored word cloud with given names and surnames in the Mahler and Burk families. It's positioned in the center of the back cover. The word cloud site I use is free.

Yetta and Isaac, you're remembered with great affection on the upcoming 117th anniversary of your June wedding.

My next photo book will be about my maternal grandparents. I'll be blogging about that soon!

The Mystery of Mary Amanda Demarest Wood

Happy 192nd birthday to Mary Amanda Demarest, my husband's paternal great-grandmother, born on June 1, 1831, in Manhattan, New York. 

Somehow Mary Amanda left New York City and wound up in Plaquemine, Louisiana where she married my husband's paternal great-grandfather, Thomas Haskell Wood, on May 14, 1845. Mary was nearly 14, Thomas was 36 on their wedding day.

This church record from St. Clements shows a Mary Amanda Demarest being baptized on March 2, 1832, along with what appear to be four sisters--all likely children of Mary Ann Demarest, who is shown as their relative in far left column. I've seen this document in the past, but I never got around to building a quick and dirty tree using these names and exact birth dates. That's what I'm going to do now, in the hope of finding more clues to try to confirm or disprove the hypothesis of this being the target ancestors I'm seeking.

Mary Amanda Demarest Wood (1831-1897) and her husband Thomas Haskell Wood (1809-1890) had 17 children together: Jane Ann "Jennie" Wood, Thomas Jefferson Isaiah Haskell Wood, John Marshall Tabor Wood, Lucy Maria Kize Wood, William Henry White Wood, Alfred Olando Wood, Francis Ellery Wood, Lavatia Allen Wood, Joe Elemuel, Charles Augustus Wood, Rachel Ellen (Nellie) Wood, George Howard Wood, Marion Elton Wood, Mary Emma Wood, James Edgar Wood (hubby's grandfather), Robert Orrin Wood, and Leander Elkanah Wood. 

Digitizing Multiple Photos with Reimagine

MyHeritage.com has just introduced a handy app, Reimagine, for scanning old photos, particularly albums or multiple photos that will fit on one screen. It's available as a standalone subscription or with the MyHeritage subscription.

The app is fast and easy to use, and I think it will help me speed through the remaining photos that need to be digitized from albums, etc.

If multiple photos are in the frame to be scanned, this clever app digitizes them separately so I can enhance or repair or colorize each one in turn. 

In this case, I set two passport photos (one from 1960s, one from 1970s) below my iPad screen and tapped the button to scan using Reimagine. These show my late mom-in-law, Marian McClure Wood (1909-1983).

The app found two faces and asked me what I wanted to do with each. 

Here's what I did with the passport photo from the 1960s. First, I used the "enhance" function to make her face clearer (see pair of photos at right, the bottom is "enhanced.")

At left, the same passport photo colorized by Reimagine. My husband says this actually looks a lot like his mother in the 1960s, purple dress and all. Younger family members tell me over and over that "black and white is boring." I'm not changing the black and white version, I'm presenting it with the colorized version to catch their eye.

I still need to experiment because, unlike flatbed scanners, using this app seems similar to taking a photo and therefore old photos may have light reflected, or other issues to deal with. With experience, I'm sure I'll be better able to manage good scans and enhancements.

Nothing will take the place of my flatbed scanner for old documents and large photos, IMHO. But for smaller items, and especially album pages, I'm giving Reimagine a try. Just want to be sure the scan is high-res enough to show all details.

Honoring US Civil War Vets for Decoration Day

Memorial Day was originally known as Decoration Day, a day to honor those who fought in the US Civil War by decorating the graves of the fallen. 

For some years, I've been researching and documenting Civil War vets from my husband's family tree. Nearly all returned from the war, although a few died--mainly of disease.

To honor their service, I'm listing their names, genealogical relationship to my husband, and their military branch.

Union side, US Civil War

Ira Caldwell (hubby's 1c3r) - 84th Indiana Infantry

George H. Handy (hubby's 1c2r) - 4th Massachusetts Infantry

Harvey H. Larimer (hubby's 1c3r) - 151st Indiana Volunteer Infantry

Isaac Newtown Larimer (hubby's 1c4r) - 35th Indiana Volunteer Infantry

Jacob Wright Larimer (hubby's 1c3r) - 151st Indiana Volunteer Infantry

James Elmer Larimer (hubby's 1c4r) - 17th Regiment, Ohio Volunteer Infantry

John Wright Larimer (hubby's 1c3r) - 17th Regiment, Ohio Volunteer Infantry

John N. McClure (hubby's 2d great-uncle) - 89th Indiana Infantry, then transfer to 26th Indiana Volunteers 

Train Caldwell McClure (hubby's 2d great-uncle) - 89th Indiana Infantry

Hugh Rinehart (hubby's 2d great-uncle) - 15th Ohio Infantry

Benjamin Franklin Steiner (hubby's 2d great-uncle) - 10th Ohio Cavalry

Samuel D. Steiner (hubby's 2d great-uncle) - 8th Ohio Infantry

Lemuel C. Wood, Sr. (hubby's 3d great-uncle) - Commander of the USS Daylight, Union Navy

Lemuel C. Wood, Jr. (hubby's 1c3r) - 3d Massachusetts Infantry

Robert Crooke Wood, Sr. (hubby's 4c4r) - Asst. Surgeon General, Union Army

Thomas F. Wood (hubby's 1c2r) - 3d Massachusetts Infantry

Isaac Larimer Work (hubby's 1c4r) - 74th Indiana Infantry

John Wright Work (hubby's 1c4r) - 74th Indiana Infantry

Confederate side, US Civil War

John Taylor Wood (hubby's 4c5r) - Confederate Navy, CSS Tallahassee, CSS Virginia

Robert Crooke Wood Jr. (hubby's 4c5r) - Wood's Mississippi Cavalry Regiment

Dr. Thomas Fanning Wood (hubby's 6c3r) - 18th No. Carolina Infantry, 3d No. Carolina Infantry