About the collections
Sometimes it's just happenstance. Someone (your grandmother? Your great-aunt?) leaves you a cache of photos, unsorted, unlabelled, unappreciated. Or a local church has a bundle of documents and photos related to your family.
That's where you step in and try to sort through everything. Impossible? Not at all. Here are some of our contributed photo collections and how we work to identify and archive them.
“If we owe regard to the memory of the dead, there is yet more respect to be paid to knowledge, to virtue, and to truth. – Samuel Johnson, The Rambler No. 60
A note about the collections: to the best of our ability we're treating these individual photo collections as if they were part of a professional archive. That means leaving images unretouched, as they were found. Despite the modern ability to "fix" photos with flaws, such as emulsion chips, cracks or torn edges of the cabinet card, or the unfortunate portrait where the subject closed her eyes when the shutter was tripped, we follow the wise words of Samuel Johnson. The truest image is the original, or as our cousin has said, "There's nothing more honest than old photos."
“To me, photography is the simultaneous recognition, in a fraction of a second, of the significance of an event. – Henri Cartier-Bresson
The Petersen/Mikkelsen Collection (Chicago, Nebraska, Wisconsin)
If it weren't for Catherine Elizabeth Brown Breetzke Petersen Meyer, the majority of our collection wouldn't exist.
Catherine, familiarly know as Cathie, was the granddaughter of Catharina Petersen Mikkelsen, who kept boxes of photos of her friends and family. Catharina was born in 1862 in Leck, Schleswig-Holstein, where photography studios emerged with the technology as it developed from daguerreotypes to tintypes to cabinet cards. An example is below left: Margarethe "Magretta" Jensen Petersen, who was Catharina's mother-in-law. It was taken at the F. Brandt Studio in Flensburg sometime before Magretta, her husband Lorentz, and her son Hans emigrated to Nebraska in 1872.
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Citation: Margarethe "Magretta" Jensen Petersen (1816-1882), scanned copy made in 2005 of an original cabinet card, F. Brandt Studios, Flensburg, Schleswig-Holstein circa 1870, owned by Cathie Meyer, Chicago, Illinois. Mrs. Meyer inherited the photograph from her grandmother Catherina Petersen Mikkelsen.
Catharina was not a fan of labelling her photos. Maybe she figured that she's always know who was who. But we don't know. As a result, we have to work through her collection to figure out who it's likely to be. Clues are left throughout census, emigration records, and family histories. We can estimate the age of the person, and that helps. The photography studio and its location are good clues too. For instance: who was most likely to have been photographed at the F. Brandt Studio in Flensburg, Schleswig-Holstein before their emigration date? How many family candidates fit these criteria?
There were really only two: Helena Sievertsen, born in 1855, who lived in Flensburg. She was the first wife of Catharina's second husband Thomas Mikkelsen. How likely is it that Catharina would have kept (and treasured!) the photo of a woman whom Thomas divorced? Besides, Helena, born in 1855, was too young to have been the woman pictured here if our date for it, based on the style of dress (this fashion was popular around 1870), is correct.
The other good candidate is someone from Catharina's Petersen side of the family. We already have a photo of Catharina's mother Elise, and this is not Elise, who was plump and pleasingly rounded. But her mother-in-law Magretta Petersen fits the criteria nicely. Besides, there's a distinct family resemblance to someone we do know.
Magretta looks amazingly like her grandson (at right), so the identification of Magretta is a comfortable conclusion. We could be wrong, but let's rely on Occam's razor whenever we can: the simple explanation is the best route forward. We also must note that Catharina chose red cardboard frames for her favorite photographs, which unfortunately bled onto the image. Thus we know which photographs Catharina particular treasured.
We reached out to Cathie after being referred to her by a mutual cousin, and what a fortuitous friendship it turned out to be. Cathie was kind enough to meet up with us several times, and each time she was generous in picking out photos that she knew would be important to us. Some were cabinet cards from the 1870s and 1880s, not all with identification. Some were family snapshots, like the one at left, neatly marked with a date, though not with an identity.
Modern snapshots are easier to parse. We recognized Dolores MacLaughlan, Tom's little sister, at left, and Cathie confirmed that she was the other little girl at right. Digitizing these photos has helped both our families preserve the images for future generations, should they care to peruse them the way we do.
Where do we go from here? If any of Cathie Breetzke Meyer's descendants are interested in sharing more information, we welcome the opportunity. But this is only a start. There's a lot more to discover.
Using a combination of census and vital records, we may discover the identities of mystery photos in Catharina's collection. She kept these images for a reason. They were precious to her. And we have to assume that they will unlock the clues to future family connections in our families...and maybe others!
We'd also like to thank Karen Mikkelsen Faarup from Denmark who has kindly shared treasured photos from her collection of Mikkelsens; Father Michael Petersen of Milwaukee for sharing his photos of his great-grandfather, Andrew Petersen, and many relations; Louise Murdock, a granddaughter of Marie Petersen, for contributing photos from her grandmother's collection; Kathy Petersen Beamis, a granddaughter of Marie's younger brother Clarence Petersen, for sharing her extensive photo album with us (see below); L.R. Adams, a descendant of the Peter Hansen Petersens of Custer County, Nebraska, who shared photos from her family collection; and Donald Leu from Omaha, who descends from the family of Alfred (Peter Edlef) Petersen and who provided photos not seen in other collections. Genealogy is truly a collaborative process!
The Jatho collection (Illinois, Florida, Louisiana)
We're very grateful to cousin Judi Jatho Weber for her tireless work on scanning and organizing photographs spanning several states and many decades. Most of this collection consists of family snapshots and documents of the George Jatho clan in the Chicago area.
“Citation: Unknown wedding party circa 1920, scanned copy made in 2006 of an original photograph, owned by Judi Jatho Weber, Chicago, Illinois.
George William Jatho was born in Charleston, South Carolina in 1900, the youngest child of William George Jatho and Jennie Müller Jatho. His father William was a merchant, while his mother Jennie was the daughter of Pastor Ludwig Müller of St. Matthew's German Evangelical Church in Charleston and was also a trained light opera singer. According to local newspaper stories Jennie and William gave recitals in Charleston during the 1880s through the 1890s and were popular singers and parties and events in the local community.
William died at the age of 46 in 1904. Jennie and her children remained in Charleston until 1910 when they relocated to Chicago, Illinois, where Jennie's older sister Margaret Müller Rinck lived. Young George thus became a Chicagoan, raising his own family there and documenting the generations with his voluminous collection of home photographs.
The collection also includes a number of photos from the Gratz family, related by marriage to the Jathos of Chicago. The photos are color, black and white, some cabinet cards from the early twentieth century, and include related vital records, newspaper clippings, and other documents of interest to the genealogist.
This collection also includes a number of photographs from the Florida contingent of the Jatho family. George Jatho's first cousin Carl Julius Jatho was born in 1923 to Carl Julius Jatho Senior (1866-1929) of Charleston, South Carolina and Mary Susan Smoot (1896-1957) of Alabama.
“Citation: Carl Julius Jatho Jr. and bride on the 'Honeymoon Express', scanned copy made in 2006 of an original photograph, owned by Judi Jatho Weber, Chicago, Illinois.
The family had settled in Polk County, Florida where a number of photographs, some unidentified and undated, have been preserved in this collection. The family eventually lived in and around Winter Haven, Florida.
The Florida collection includes photographs, mostly personal snapshots but some studio portraits, from the early 1900s through the 1990s. We're grateful to Susan Jatho Reed and Myra Mamo for sharing their family photos with us and helping build this collection.
We're also grateful to the family of Edgar Wilfred Jatho of New Orleans, who hosted our clan for the 2008 Jatho Family Reunion and provided scans of photographs spanning the entirety of the twentieth century, filling in gaps in our knowledge of their family. We are truly grateful.
The Petersen Collection (Illinois and Arizona)
This collection includes images of the younger Petersen siblings: Alfred Emil Petersen/Alva Elwood MacLaughlan, George Petersen, Marie Petersen, and Clarence Petersen, as well as their offspring and cousins.
“Citation: Catherine Petersen Mikkelsen and granddaughter Louise Schmidt, 1935 in Chicago, scanned copy made in 2016 of an original photograph, owned by Kathy Petersen Beamis, Buckeye, Arizona.
These siblings were located in the Chicago area near their mother Catherine Petersen Mikkelsen. After her death in 1944 most of them began to scatter. Alva and George ended up in California, Alva in Southern California, George in the north. Clarence, the youngest son of Hans and Catherine Petersen, migrated to Arizona and then to various enterprises in the desert area of Southern California. All of them were devotees of cars in one way or another, including Marie, who remained in Chicago all her life.
Kathy Petersen Beamis is the knowledgeable steward of this collection whose meticulous notes and details help illuminate the whys and wherefores of the collection. Her siblings and cousins have also contributed to the photos and documents that help us follow our ancestors in their various peregrinations throughout the southwest.
The majority of this collection consists of family snapshots and helpful vital records, and we're grateful to Kathy and Kathy's sisters, cousins, and extended family for curating these items so thoroughly.
The Müller Collection (Charleston, South Carolina)
The Rev. Ludwig Müller has a plethora of descendants but only a few of them have access to photos and documents detailing his career in the Lutheran church of New York and Charleston. His primary career was in Charleston, a city with the largest community of German immigrants on the eastern seaboard.
Ludwig was pastor of the St. Matthew's German Lutheran Church for fifty years, an extraordinary career spanning 1848 through 1898. The St. Matthew's Church archives have a rich collection of documents, particularly church records, in Ludwig's own handwriting. We're grateful to Mary Ivester and Nancy S. Kruger and other archivists at the church who have so generously shared material with us.
“Citation: Historical and Governing Records, 1841-1925, St. Matthew's Lutheran Church, Charleston, South Carolina, photograph of Pastor Ludwig Müller dated 1870, digital copy at the Lowcountry Digital Library, https://lcdl.library.cofc.edu/lcdl/catalog/246093.
The late Phillip Thomas of Virginia was a great-grandson of Ludwig. His collection was formidable, including photos, family trees, vital records, and personal histories of the Müller family, both in Zweibrücken, Rhineland-Pfalz and in Charleston.
We've also been fortunate to share photos and documents from Margaret Fulmer and Anne Wheeler, who are descended from Ludwig and his wife Caroline (Laurent) Müller, and also from Ludwig's brother William, who settled in Atlanta, Georgia. Most of these photographs are from cabinet cards and home snapshots and are throughly documented.
Bruns/Gohr/Kramp/Glawe Collection (Chicago)
In some families there's a plethora of photographs, but in others there's nothing -- maybe a stray snapshot but no cabinet cards, no portraits. That was recently the situation with our families which included Bruns, Gohr, Kramp, and Glawe surnames, but thanks to a bequest from a cousin, this is no longer the case.
“Citation: Digital reproduction of a photograph, front side, collection of Anna Gohr Glawe: Laura Kramp Gohr, Chicago, circa 1885, original photograph from the album of the owner, scanned in 2023, accessed 18 November 2023.
Bruns cousins have been generous in sharing their family photos, and we're grateful for that. More recently we've received a generous collection of images from the Gohr and Glawe families of Chicago. Not only have the pictures helped us see into the past but their carefully annotated captions have also helped clear up some genealogical mysteries.
These photos now document our earliest Kramp family immigrants as well as the daughters and son of Laura Kramp and her husband Wilhelm Gohr. The daughters married into families such as Glawe, Schultz, Collins, Meyers, and Bruns.
“Citation: First Lutheran Church of the Trinity, Chicago, Illinois, 1881: marriage record for Wilhelm Gohr and Laura Kramp, original digital photograph by Cherlyn Hughes Bruns, 2007.
We're also fortunate to have documents like this one from the First Church of the Trinity in Chicago. We're grateful to Cherlyn Bruns for providing photographs of the church book entry of Laura's marriage to Wilhelm Gohr in 1881 as well as other images of Bruns, Gohr, and Kramp grave markers and vital records. Her collection helps us understand how these families were interrelated. Emigration records, birth and baptism records, census records are some of the sources that tell us how these families thrived in cities such as Cincinnati and Chicago. This collection is a remarkable treasure.
Thanks to Cherlyn Hughes Bruns, Lorraine Bruns MacLaughlan, Diane Fellmer Maynard, and laurel Henrickson for photos and documents related to the Bruns, Gohr, Kramp, and Glawe families.
Jatho Collection (Charleston)
Anne Marie Dressel is the oldest ancestor for whom we have an image, and we're fortunate that her family thought it worth the money to have her portrait painted in 1827. The painting was done where the family lived in Hesse-Darmstadt, possibly as a commemoration of her engagement to haberdasher Louis Schuchmann, whom she married in 1828. Louis, Marie, and their two children Elise and Philip emigrated to Charleston, South Carolina where Louis and Philip managed a successful business from 1840 until Philip's death in 1900.
“Citation: Artist unknown, portrait of Anne Marie Dressel, ca. 1827 Hesse-Darmstadt, photograph and portrait held privately by the family of Al DuBose Roode, Palm Beach Gardens, Florida.
The family of Olga Jatho Quin and her father George W. Jatho, Charleston natives, managed the collection including the painting, family photos, and other keepsakes. These items have greatly enriched our understanding of the Jatho and Schuckmann families as they established themselves in Charleston society.
Olga's older sister Maryliese Jatho Magwood donated a sample of her grandmother Elise Schuckmann Jatho's
embroidery to the Charleston Museum, where it is
kept out of public display due to the delicate nature of its fabric. Billed as America's
first museum, it was founded in 1773 with a focus on the South Carolina Lowcountry.
In this piece completed when she was fourteen years old in 1843, Elise's rendering of the the flowers is particularly delicate, with most of the blossoms identifiable: morning glories, violas, chrysanthemums, and periwinkle, among others. We're grateful to the Charleston Museum for their caretaking of our ancestral treasures.
This is how the embroidery was displayed in the museum website before they changed their design.
MacLaughlan Collection (Illinois and Southern California)
By 1914 when he married, Alfred Emil Petersen was in the midst of changing his name and, by extension, ancestral origins. He was married as Alfred McLaughlin to Marie Jatho (who was all of fifteen). Their first child was Marie Catherine, born in 1915, their second was Thomas William Petersen-McLaughlin, who is the baby in the image at right.
“Citation: Thomas William MacLaughlan, ca. 1916, personal photograph by Marie Jatho MacLaughlan, scanned in 2006 from the collection of the late Lorraine Bruns MacLaughlan, Claremont, California.
The name was a puzzle. Thomas was known as MacLaughlan in his adulthood. What was the reason for the spelling Petersen-McLaughlin on his 1916 baptism record?
We've since found out. Alfred, Thomas' father, changed his name to Alva Elwood MacLaughlan and maintained to the end of his life that he was born with that name and was descended from Scotsmen, the better to hide his Danish/German ancestry. His son Thomas either believed this story or promulgated it. As a result there was was no neat way to explain the peculiar spelling of his surname -- it was a mistake, Thomas and his wife insisted. No, it was a name in flux.
The MacLaughlan collection of photos and documents doesn't include any images of the family before 1915, not to mention stories or anecdotes of their Petersen and Mikkelsen family members. Most of the family photos are snapshots taken by Alva and Marie with their children. None of the photos show Alva's brothers George and Clarence or his sister Marie. None show his stepsister Florence Mikkelsen. We learned about oll of them from Thomas MacLaughlan's grandmother's collection above. Catherine Petersen Mikkelsen...we know her name now.
The collection's lacunae may have been mostly unknown to its curator, Thomas MacLaughlan's wife Lorraine Bruns. But Thomas' baptism certificate was more or less the family's Rosetta stone. It referred to the three families in the background: Jatho, Mikkelsen, Petersen. It was an early clue to the new direction.
Not only did Lorraine MacLaughlan leave this document to us to use as a key, she also tirelessly collected and preserved photos from her husband's family as well as her own. She assembled notes, family histories (as far as she was able), and stories about her husband's family. All the material she handed down has been an invaluable resource in putting together the story of these intertwined families.