Never say never

The Kuhse and Peters families, circa 1940.

If there's one thing I've learned in the family history process it's that there's no such thing as a dead end. Sure, it may seem daunting and there may be barriers that appear impenetrable (I have several), but if you keep looking and searching and digging and asking and wondering sometimes those previously unsolvable questions find themselves answered.

This had been true for me on dozens occasions, most recently this afternoon, with the arrival of a thick envelope in the US Mail. It was from my second cousin once removed, a woman I have never met, nor had I communicated with until a week ago when I sent her enlarged photocopies of three photos and a simple plea: Please help me identify these people.

I first noticed this photo because it had my grandmother
(third from right), my great grandmother (right) and my
great aunt Dorothy (left).

In my quest to digitize and categorize all of my family photos (think Prometheus pushing that boulder up Mt. Olympus) I've come across many, many, many photos without names, dates, or anything to indicate I should know the people they document. The most recent puzzle came from an album that once belonged to my paternal grandmother. Among the many photos I recognized there were three that were a mystery. Two contained faces I instantly recognized, including my grandparents, my grandmother's siblings, their mother (my great grandmother). Others were unknown to me.

As I usually do with unknown images, I start comparing to those I know. It helped that I knew about half the people in two photos. With that many family the rest (I assumed) were family as well. There was also an older woman standing next to my great grandmother in both images that looked like it could be her sister. But which sister (she had three)?

To determine which sister, I looked at the other people in the photo. There were three women besides those from my family, my great grandmother and her sister. A quick peruse of the family tree showed that only one of my great grandmother's sisters had three daughters: Aunt Lizzie.

Unfortunately, Aunt Lizzie and her children are dead. Time to look into her grandchildren. Through the awesome power of Google, I found the address of one of her granddaughters, still living in the same area where the family has been for decades. Taking a leap of faith, I printed the three photos, slapped them in an envelope, and sent them off the Lake View, Iowa.

The little girl in this photo ended up being the woman who
helped identify the people in all three.

I had almost forgot about it until the mail arrived today. Inside, along with a lovely note, were the same printouts I had sent, but this time with all the names written on them confirming the identities of every person in the pictures. It was Aunt Lizzie's family! In fact, toe youngest child in the photos is the very woman with whom I was corresponding!

I now look forward to printing these images off and sending them to her as she requested. She said she had never seen the photos before and wanted nice copies. It's a simple request I'm more than happy to fulfill.

Three photos officially off the "unidentified" list - only about a million more to go!