Wehrly Family Photos

Used my Flip-Pal scanner a couple of weeks ago and was able to scan some photographs from cousin Judy (Wehrly) Solms that were in an album her mother had made.  Her brother, Frank Wehrly had told me about the photos and we were able to spend an afternoon together. Frank & Judy are my second cousins once removed. The photos were glued in an album, and I was able to stitch the family photograph together.

Frank & Kathryn (Migron) Wehrly family
Back row : Janice, Paul
Front row : Judy, Frank Sr., Kathryn, Frank Jr.

Several other photos I was able to scan in full.  It was good to be able to scan these and then share them digitally.

 

Frank & Kathryn (Migron) Wehrly in Ft. Recovery, Ohio

Frank's parents were Alva Monroe & Emma C. (Yaeger) Wehrly.  Alva was the younger brother of my great-grandmother, Barbara Isabel (Wehrly) LeMasters.

Alva M. & Emma C. (Yaeger) Wehrly

This photograph was of several members at a reunion in 1960.

Wehrly Family 1960
Hollis & Betty, Lisle & Cora, Frank & Kathryn, Norval & Mary & Grandma W.

These are the children of Alva & Emma and spouses.  Lisle married Cora Baldauf, Frank married Kathryn Migron, Mary married Norval DeLauter and Betty married Hollis Steen.

There are more photographs to sort through and scan, but it was nice to see these distant family members I had never seen before.

First Christian Church : Alexandria, Indiana (1831-1981)

First Christian Church, Alexandria, Indiana Sesquicentennial program

While at the Alexandria-Monroe Township Historical Society recently, I was able to use my Flip-Pal scanner to scan some photographs and information from the sesquicentennial program of the First Christian Church in Alexandria, Indiana.  I attended this church growing up and remember this program and time period in the church's history.


I was excited to be able to find pictures of the church choir during this time frame, because my maternal grandmother, Bonnie Wright, was a member.

First Christian Church choir, 1981

First Christian Church choir, 1981 [from program]

Choir Members

Row 1 (Left to Right) - Joyce White, Betty Parks, Karla Hall, Jeanne Beck, Deborah Gosnell, Anne Nelson, Pianist.

Row 2 - Virginia Wachenschwanz, Director; Barbara Miller, Jayne Dyer, Carolyn Hall, Margaret Gosnell, Dennis Kirkpatrick, Janice Armstrong, Organist.

Row 3 - Bonnie Wright, Shirley Colvill, Jesse McMahan, Judy Welcome, Betty Hampton.

Row 4 - Tom Colvill, Dave Dyer, Robert Miller, Dennis Sizelove, Larry Hobbs, Paul Tanner, Jack Wachenschwanz.

A Matter of Perspective

Had a good visit with my mom's cousin and his wife today, and was able to take my Flip-Pal scanner with me on the road to capture scans of some great photographs, some of which my mother had never seen.  Of great interest were the photos of my grandfather in military uniform, as well as those of my grandmother when she was younger.

William Lee "Johnny Bill" Wright, Florida, c. 1944

My cousin even had some older photos from generations that he was not familiar with, including one of my 4th-great grandmother and her family, taken on her 81st birthday, January 9, 1914 in Norton, Kansas.  She died on March 9th of that same year.

Residence of Hannah Mills Poe, Norton, Kansas on her 81st birthday, January 9, 1914

There were also photographs that came from his grandparents family, my-great grandparents, and thus I was greatly interested in hearing some of the family stories.


One thing that I've learned is that so much of family history is a matter of perspective.  The way someone views a family member and the legends that develop and get passed down are colored by the perspective of the teller.  It is interesting to get a point of view from a different family who may have differing insight into why someone behaved the way they did.


I was able to sit back and observe, letting my mother and dad and mom's cousin and wife talk about people, places and events without interrupting them too much.  It definitely gave me insight, and fodder for future questions to ask about the family.

1897 Directory : Portland, Indiana

My dad has been "downsizing" a bit here recently and has been giving me family history items and other ephemera that I'm in the process of scanning, extracting and posting to the blog.  Using my new Flip-Pal scanner, I'm posting here some family I've found in the 1897 Directory of Portland, Indiana.  Dad's copy is the 1982 reprint, and it is still available for purchase for $5.00 (a steal!) from the Jay County Historical Society.

As I went through the directory, I scanned pages that contained surnames of interest in my research.

The Arthur E. Graves listed here with wife Carrie is the only one that is known to be family, but I've included the others in case someone else knows them.  Arthur was married to Carrie Mae HALEY, daughter of George W. and Mary Jane (SHERRICK) HALEY.  Carrie was my great-grandaunt.  She and Arthur were married in 1895 in Jay County.

There were several HALEY families listed in the directory, but the only one I know for sure is my family is Ora HALEY, listed as being of school age, living at 289 Robert Huey.  She is the sister of Carrie GRAVES (above), and living in the same household.  There were multiple HALEY families in Portland, and I've yet to sort them all out.

The Mary J. KIMBLE listed here is my paternal 2nd-great grandmother, Mary Jane (SHERRICK) HALEY KIMBLE, who was widowed and remarried in May of 1897 to Robert KIMBLE.  Why Robert is not listed in this directory, I'm not sure.  I do not know if the other KIMBLEs listed are of his family.  

Notice that Mary KIMBLE, Ora HALEY and Arthur & Carrie GRAVES were all living together at 289 Robert Huey.  Today, this street does not exist.  According to the street cross reference, Robert Huey was Meridian extended, from Votaw to North Corporate line.  Today this is all part of Meridian street.

I've yet to identify which PETRY family that Stella belongs with; another avenue of research.

The J.W. Wehrly listed here was John William WEHRLY, son of William P. and Olive Jane (SMITH) WEHRLY.  John was my paternal great-granduncle.  Later in the directory, the surname is spelled alternatively as Wherley.

Source: A City and Business Directory of the City of Portland, Indiana (1897) (Defiance, Ohio, USA: The Hubbard Company, 1982 (reprint))

Analyzing Blogger Stats

The information provided by Blogger's Stats over this past month has been pretty interesting to analyze.


My most popular post this month was my review of the Flip-Pal scanner.  Not surprisingly, this scanner has become my favorite new genealogy toy.  I'm sure that this post has been one of the more popular because of my posting a link on Twitter.  Using Twitter to post about blog posts has increased some traffic to the blog.


It would also appear that by using the widget for "Popular Posts" has allowed some of those posts to have even more page views.  In other words, the popular posts end up becoming more popular.


Some of the search terms and links that have caused people to land at my blog are pretty interesting as well:

Most of the referrals have come from Google, but Facebook and Geneabloggers are well represented.


One of the more interesting search terms was "suicide daughter married james dwiggins"!  Why didn't this person contact me?  This sounds like a great mystery.  I'm not aware of any suicides involving the Dwiggins family in my research.  Two searchers were looking for "Dr. Chew Salamonia Indiana" - my ancestor.  Who were you?  You didn't leave any comments.  


I'm glad that I've added this feature to my blog, and I've turned off my own tracking, so in the future this will be even more accurate.  I'm glad to see that links to my Facebook profile and occasional tweets have also brought visitors to check out my blog.

Review: Flip-Pal Mobile Scanner

After what to me seemed like an eternity, today my Flip-Pal Mobile Scanner arrived at the post office.*

Can you tell I was excited?  My wife was like "Really?, You're taking pictures of the box? C'mon and open it already..."

I was surprised to find no Styrofoam peanuts, bubble-wrap, etc. in the box.  However, when I pulled it out, I realized that my new toy was well packaged.

I'm impressed that the company gives you batteries.  In today's age of "batteries not included" it was nice to be able to open up the package and get started without hunting around the house for suitable batteries.  The 2 GB SD memory card is a nice plus as well.


I was prompted to purchase this scanner due to the review of fellow GeneaBlogger Susan Petersen of Long Lost Relatives.  Susan wasn't exaggerating when she said that the scanner was able to be producing images within a couple of minutes.  This scanner is very fast!  I've been used to using my combination printer/scanner and frankly it was sooo slow.

The first photo I scanned was one of Megan and her grandmother.  The scanner did a good, fast scan.  I quickly popped in a few more photos and was impressed with the ease and speed of the scanner.

I was impressed with how light weight this scanner is.  At less than 2 lbs. this is going to be a great tool to use at the courthouse for research and for taking to family get-togethers and holidays.

Next, I decided I would take the lid off of the scanner and try to scan something that was not a standard photo.  I was eager to test out the 'stitch' technology used by the Flip-Pal to merge individual scans together.

My first attempt was a colossal failure.  I tried to scan an 8X10 printout of an obituary I had received from the library and attempted to 'stitch' them together.  The software that comes with the scanner is fairly straight-forward:

My first attempt to stitch images together did not work because I failed to read the instructions.  I didn't allow for the proper overlap in my images, and the software failed to recognize and properly stitch it together.  Undaunted, I read the instructions and tried again, this time with an 8x10 photo of my nephew.  Here are the individual images:

Using the 'Stitch Scans' option, you select the images that you want to put together.  The software then does its magic and puts them together.  Finally, you can open the image and edit it in your photo editing software.  Here is the finished image produced by the Flip-Pal:

Now all I have to do is trim up the edges, and I have a nice, clean scan of my nephew, Eli.  The best part is that it took less than 5 minutes!


I cannot wait to dive into scanning the photo albums, postcards, etc. around the house.


The Flip-Pal website


Disclaimer: I purchased this product directly from the Flip-Pal website.  I received no compensation for this review.


* Eternity is defined in this case as the time it took from order to arrival.  I ordered on November 4th, and the product arrived November 20th.  The company shipped using FedEx SmartPost, which for some reason took the package from Indianapolis (FedEx hub) to Cincinnati to have the USPS deliver.  The distance from my house to Indianapolis is 65 miles.  The distance from my house to Cincinnati is 170 miles.  Go figure.