Mystery Photos: Bishop family album

Someone asked me where my profile picture is from. Ebay.

I have several family name searches saved on Ebay. I never found the fabled family bible, but I did find a photo album engraved “F. & L.H. Bishop.” I bought it. Great pictures. Some tintypes. Not a single one was labeled with the name of the subject.

I found the listing not by searching for Bishop, but for another family line, Duryea. Bishop is an annoying name to search because it’s a word in English. The Duryea search produces results for the car Duryea, Duryea Pennsylvania, actor Dan Duryea, actor George Duryea, actor Viola Allen- wife of Peter Duryea; but also the photographers Duryea. Two of the cabinet cards were by Duryea and mentioned in the description.

There are ways of dating pictures based on the size, color, and materials; the photographer and the address; as well as the setting and the clothes and hairstyles. I have not delved deeply into this yet.

Based on the locations of the studios- Newark, New York City, Brooklyn, Trenton, Pittsfield, Massachussetts, and Torrington, Connecticut- I think that these photos could be my Bishop line. Or they might not be. I have the album just in case. I have not yet found a Bishop couple with the initials F. and L.H., but I am still looking.



Fredericks, 770 Broadway, N.Y., 1887



Tintype



Meuer, photo artist, 262 Bowery, New York



Bostwick, No. 98 Sixth Ave, Bet. 8th and 9th Sts., New York



Certificate of Death: finding and using

Finding the death certificate can be very helpful for discovering the names of parents and of the cemetery. I have been disappointed many times when reading the parents' names as "Unknown." Also, the place of burial may have been changed after the death certificate was written, as I have discovered after a few wild goose chases.  But I have quite a few gems.  It is important to remember that the death certificate is written, by definition, after the subject has died and is not able to offer input.  The informant may not know the correct information or may give inaccurate information for lots of reasons.  Thus, the death certificate is a primary source for the date of death, but not the rest of the information found on the certificate.

This week, I received the death certificate of Calvin Cook.  He died 20 October 1889 in Jersey City, Hudson County, New Jersey.  Kudos to the Division of Archives for the fast- under two weeks- turnaround time.

Finding a date of death and then the death certificate in New Jersey is sometimes easy, sometimes impossible.  Calvin's acquisition proceeded like so:

1-  Calvin Cook, wife, and three children found in the 1880 federal census living on "Meadows" in Kearney, Hudson County, New Jersey.
2-  Neither he nor the wife found in the 1900 federal census.  Target death:  between 1880 and 1900.
3-  Found a potential match in an online family tree- died 20 October 1889.  Needed additional confirmation.  Emailed the creator.
4-  No matches found in a search of newspapers at genealogybank.com.  Performed a paper to paper search of the Jersey Journal at this website and find the obit on page 1 of the 22 October 1889 edition; died in Jersey City; buried in Dover, New Jersey.
5-  Mailed $10 and completed form to the New Jersey Division of Archives.

In the meantime, the creator of the online tree contacted me.  We discovered that we are third cousins, once removed.  I visited two cemeteries in Dover with no luck.  The office was closed at Locust Hill Cemetery, but I emailed them through their website.  The other cemetery, Orchard Street Cemetery, seemed older and more likely to be the one.  I walked around but did not see a Cook stone.

Two weeks later, I have the death certificate.  Parents of Calvin are listed as Stephen and Elizabeth.  This is great for researching the previous generation.  The place of burial was Dover, New Jersey.  No cemetery listed.

Game plan:  find death of Calvin's wife, Mary, and hope her obituary and death certificate lists an actual cemetery.

Eventual goal:  link this line to the Cooke line of the Mayflower.

Remarkable

While googling an ancestor in hopes of coming across useful genealogical info, I found a picture of his family grave at flickr.  I won't repaste the photograph here (in the interest of not violating any possible copyrights).  I have my own pictures of this plot, so they will suffice for the illustration.



Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, Tarrytown, Westchester County, New York
30 July 2010

 The caption reads "Mini-Me."  The caption used to read "Got Bars?"

I myself have taken pictures of unusual or interesting graves.  This is the first that I have seen someone take such an interest in one of my family graves.  Is this flattering, spooky, or irreverent?  I am not sure.

In studying the picture, I realized that the "mini me" gravestones, also known as footstones, were once in their proper places, but had migrated to rest against the headstones.  Some were moved and broken when my grandmother was buried in this plot in 2003, so the cemetery may have repaired them and then moved the rest of the footstones.



March 2001