Finding a genealogy-minded cousin who is as excited and passionate as we are to share and build upon each others knowledge is a true gift, don’t you think?!
Hello. I enjoyed your story. I was focused on the "boarded out" reference. I have a couple of ancestors that I suspect were "bound out" which was a legal process by which orphans and children from difficult financial situations would be given up by their parents or guardians in exchange for the receiver to agree to take care of the children for a given period of time. I don't believe this is a similar practice as your "boarded out" ancestors, but I wanted to mention it to see if maybe there was more to being "boarded out" than just sending (and I presume paying for) children to a boarding house or school. Thanks!
Hi Steve, you are correct… my reference to “boarded out” involved sending the children away to school, rather than giving up legal responsibility. From my distant cousin, I learned that this was preferred by great-grandmother Mattie and her sisters, who apparently did not get along well with their step-mother.
I liked the structure for this piece. You dive right in to the goodies, get the readers attention and then back track a bit to cover the necessary preliminary connections. Well done. Your intuition about the true purpose of the family photo appeals to me as well. With the invention of the the Carte de visite' process after the Civil War, one photo could be printed multiple times so for a man in this situation or a single person could affordably get multiple photos of themselves to distribute to friends and family as a sort of "advertising." Hey they didn't have E Harmony!
Finding a genealogy-minded cousin who is as excited and passionate as we are to share and build upon each others knowledge is a true gift, don’t you think?!
Hello. I enjoyed your story. I was focused on the "boarded out" reference. I have a couple of ancestors that I suspect were "bound out" which was a legal process by which orphans and children from difficult financial situations would be given up by their parents or guardians in exchange for the receiver to agree to take care of the children for a given period of time. I don't believe this is a similar practice as your "boarded out" ancestors, but I wanted to mention it to see if maybe there was more to being "boarded out" than just sending (and I presume paying for) children to a boarding house or school. Thanks!
Hi Steve, you are correct… my reference to “boarded out” involved sending the children away to school, rather than giving up legal responsibility. From my distant cousin, I learned that this was preferred by great-grandmother Mattie and her sisters, who apparently did not get along well with their step-mother.
I liked the structure for this piece. You dive right in to the goodies, get the readers attention and then back track a bit to cover the necessary preliminary connections. Well done. Your intuition about the true purpose of the family photo appeals to me as well. With the invention of the the Carte de visite' process after the Civil War, one photo could be printed multiple times so for a man in this situation or a single person could affordably get multiple photos of themselves to distribute to friends and family as a sort of "advertising." Hey they didn't have E Harmony!