Who are the people in these photos?

Hello dear cousins,
From our dear Aunt Pat, via Ryn and via Barb, have come some new family photos. Knowing that on the back of them there are no names, I find myself thinking there should be a law that requires people to write a caption in pencil on the back (lightly on the edge...) for every photo taken.

But since there were no captions, I have been trying to figure out who these people are. Would you be interested in my conclusions?
It's amazing what you can deduce from a photo without knowing anything about it, just by studying it for a long time. Little details that you don't notice at first begin to come into your awareness after you stare at the photo for a while.

The first lady with the black hat? I think this is Barbara Hemerling (Elizabeth LaSalle's mother. Elizabeth LaSalle was the mother of our grandfather, A.J.Gates.) The lady in the photo looks about 60 or 70 (note the gray hair) in the photo. It looks to be an 1890-1900 photo (from the style of the dress and hat) so she would have to be born about 1830 to be 70. Barbara was born in1829. Barbara came from the Alsace-Lorraine part of Germany and Austria (Vienna, said my mother). Doesn't this lady have that proud Austrian look? (Am I making this up?)

Skip the following genealogical analysis unless you want to know the convoluted kind of thinking people who attempt genealogy must endure:
[There are only a few women on the family tree who were alive in 1880-1900, the time of this photo. The lady in the photo is too old to be Mary Augusta Gorton, Grandmother's mother. (Mary Augusta was 40 in 1890, not 70). The lady in the photo has a thin face so she can't be Francis Lucinda Roberts, who has a very round face. (See photo in Geneablog #1).
She looks a bit too young to be John Charles Gates' mother, Sibylla Steffler Goetz, who was born abt 1814, and would be about 76 in 1890.

That she has glasses on makes me think of Mary Augusta Gorton and her mother, Frances Lucinda Roberts, who both wore glasses, and since eyesight is often hereditary, maybe this is Emaline Hotchkiss, (Frances Lucinda's mother...)? But Emaline was born in 1805 and she died in 1890 at age 85 So it's probably not her.

George W. Myers wore glasses so maybe it's his mother, Catherine Myers? George W. Myers' mother was born in 1808, so if she lived to 1890 for this photo, she'd also be 82 which is much older than this lady. So I'm back to Barbara.]

Barbara Hemerling was alive in 1900 (was on the 1900 census) and she was about 70 years old then. She and her second husband, Andrew Meyers, lived with her daughter, Elizabeth, and with Elizabeth's husband, John Charles Gates and their 8 children, second youngest being Augustus Joseph Francis Gates. Because Barbara lived with Elizabeth, Barbara's photo would have likely been passed down to her daughter, Elizabeth, and then to her daughter's children, A.J. Gates being one and then it went to Aunt Pat, the youngest in the family.

Who is the baby? The photo is around 1880-1890. If you study the baby's face, you may be reminded of someone else who has very petite lips and who tilts her head for all her photos. I'm fairly sure that this photo is of Grandmother, Frances Lenore Myers, around 1889, about age 2. The first clue is that in the front right-hand corner of the photo, it says "Lima, Ohio." (I didn't see that until I had studied the photo several different times.) Lima is where Grandmother was born. The caption of the second photo, also with "Lima, Ohio" printed on the front, says, "My little girl at six months," in handwriting "that looks like grandmother's," says Ryn and Barb. Grandmother is the only girl in the family of Myers children born in Lima, Ohio. I have seen Mary Augusta's handwriting in inscriptions in books given to Grandmother, and their handwriting is almost exactly the same.(And like my mother's). So the 6 month-old baby must be Grandmother herself again.

And who are these lovely ladies below?


The first tinted image is Elizabeth LaSalle at about age 16-20, in abt. 1865 to 1869. (I know this from a captioned! photo that Connie gave to all her children.) Barb said the original photo was on a piece of porcelain. Elizabeth has on her best New Orleans style dress, reminiscent of the Civil war styles(1865), like in Gone with the Wind. Could this be her coming out party at age 16? Perhaps her wedding? It seems to be more of a ball gown than a wedding dress to me. She gets married to John Charles Gates at age 20, in 1870. Does she look 16? or 20? I think 16.

Next, who is the lady in black on a tintype? Tintypes were invented in 1856 and in mass use by 1870 or earlier. I think she looks like Elizabeth LaSalle again, more around the age of 20 or so. She's got that same hair style, parted in the middle with a similar little curl coming down on the forehead and she seems to have the same nose. What do you think?

Uncle Bill, do you have any memory of the first photo at the top being referred to as Grandma Gates' mother, Barbara Hemerling?
Maybe you remember one of those sessions where the older people take out the photos and spread them out on the table and point out who was who and the younger people look at the photos on the table and say, "who is that again?" If only they had written something, anything, on the back of the photos.

So, cousins, remember, if you don't want your grandchildren to be wondering whether to throw those pictures out or not, write captions on your photos!
Thanks Ryn and Barb (and Aunt Pat) for the pictures.
Love,
your cousin,
Janet

First geneablog: John N. ROBERTS

11 December 2007
Hello, my Gates cousins and anyone else who is reading this.
This is the first installment of my geneablog. I hope you find it interesting.

The photo on the left is that of John N. ROBERTS (photo from The Castle Tea Room).

He's our great, great grand uncle. He was the younger brother of our great, great grandmother, Lucinda Frances ROBERTS , aka Frances L. GORTON in her older years (photo on right). She was born in Warren, Trumbull County, Ohio in 1826 and he was born 12 miles away in Mecca, Trumbull County, OH, 12 years later, in 1838.

Thanks to Jocelyn (and her superior search skills) who found the first information on John N., I have ordered his probably riveting book, Reminiscences of the Civil War (which he wrote in 1925, at age 87) to see if he speaks of his (our!) ancestors in it.

I am hoping to find a lot about John N. because he is my link to Lucinda's, and my, (and your, my Gates cousins) ancestry. In case you've forgotten, Mary Augusta GORTON (married as MYERS) was our grandmother's mother, and Lucinda Frances ROBERTS (married as GORTON) was Mary Augusta's mother. All oriented now?


Before I speculate about our probable second Patriot in the family, I am waiting to find out for sure who John N. says (in his book) his grandfather was. John N. states (in an excerpt from his book) that his grandfather ROBERTS was a Revolutionary Patriot but does not give his first name and I can find no identifying record of his grandfather's marriage or birth of his children...yet.

John N. and Lucinda's father was a John ROBERTS who was born "near Hartford," CT around 1800, according to John N.'s book and OH census records. John marries, at age 22, Emaline HOTCHKISS, from New Haven, CT in 1822, in Gustavus, Trumbull County, OH. We have a copy of this record.

In the D.A.R. Patriot book, there are three "William ROBERTS" listings:
#1. born 1749, from NY, with wife, Phebe FULLER;
#2. born 1754, from MA, with wife Eliz MARVIN; and
#3. born 1762, from VT, with service in VT, MA and CT, with wife Margaret MERRILL.

I found out some more about the William Roberts whose wife is Margaret Merrill. He was born in 1762, in West Simsbury (now called "Canton"), CT (William, the Patriot, was born "near Hartford" says John N.'s book excerpt) and he moves to Gustavus, OH after the war where he dies in 1833.

"Gustavus"- doesn't that ring a bell? John N. and Lucinda's parents, John Roberts and Emaline Hotchkiss get married in Gustavus in 1822.

The fact that John and Emaline are from CT but get married in Gustavus, OH and John's father, named Roberts, was a Patriot, and there is a Roberts patriot who moves from CT to Gustavus, OH makes me think this William is the ancestor I am looking for.

It would make sense that a son of 22 would follow his parents from CT to their new home in OH and take his girlfriend and then get married there. How likely is it that more than one John Roberts left CT and moved to Gustavus? Well, there could have been two John Roberts if a large group of related Roberts family members all went together, so I'll wait until I have some proof before I say I'm sure.

I suspect that maybe this was bounty land. Must do some more historical sleuthing. Was Ohio part of bounty lands given to Rev. War patriots? Where's a historian when you need one?

The Revolutionary War pension records refer to "William Roberts" as "the only Revolutionary pensioner by that name in Gustavus" but that still doesn't prove that he is John N. and Lucinda's father. There might have been another Roberts Patriot who moved from CT to OH that D.A.R. doesn't have listed. (?)

Luckily, when William Roberts, the Patriot, died, his wife, Margaret, had to file many papers to get his pension transferred to her. One record is an affidavit, in 1839, from her, stating that she has no record of her marriage (married 1785, in Granby, CT) nor of the birth of her children...the children she doesn't list!

John N. Roberts was an interesting character because after serving in the Civil War, he moved to Lawrence, KS where he built a house of stone that looked like a castle. (See "story" at The Castle Tea Room). He even went to Hawaii and back at the age of 89, right before his death.

John N.'s only daughter Isabel Brandon ROBERTS, "Belle", married, first, Herbert ARMSTRONG of Topeka, KS, then second, Mark OTIS, of Chicago. When Mark died of the flu in 1918, John N., his wife Emily (SUTLIFF), and his daughter Belle moved to San Diego, California, to start life anew. Belle was born in July 1870 and died in March 1970 in San Diego, a few months short of 100 years old. Longevity! Unfortunately, I have found no record of Belle having any children.

John N. Roberts refers to his earliest Roberts ancestor as a "Major ROBERTS, from the Scottish Highlands," who was in the British Army and came to Connecticut in the 1600's. So cousins, if he's right, we're Scottish! Jocelyn says the Roberts/Robertson name has a plaid so get ready for the kilts!

More on John N. Roberts when his book comes all the way from a Kansas library to me on interlibrary loan. And then more on his grandfather, William the Patriot, I hope.
What do you think about this latest addition to our family?

I think that you can comment on this page at the bottom so you don't have to return email to everyone.
Love, your cousin,
Jan