Dead Fred

Among the pictures I am digitizing and organizing are some of people I cannot identify.  That's one problem that we all face.  What makes it a particular concern is that pictures come down to you from Relative A who may have inherited it from Relative B and it's B's in-laws, and not your family at all.  How do you know?  

Another set are pictures that are not my family but are identified on the back of the photo.  The solution here was advised to me by the Practical Archivist.  She said to upload it to Dead Fred.   Evidently this is an orphaned photo site.  Much like Findagrave, it is operated by volunteers uploading photos.  So I uploaded two that were clearly identified.  You can search Dead Fred on the other side too to find pictures of your long lost ancestors.  I did a broad search for the surname Pinkham and got two hits.  They were both group photos with men named Pinkham identified in the group.  Neither were any close relation to me.  The other surnames I searched all came up empty.  At present there are just over 100,000 photos in Dead Fred according to their website.

From what the Practical Archivist told me and the promos on Dead Fred, people have found pictures of their ancestors that they might not have found any other way.  So Kudos to Dead  Fred.  My next experiment will be to upload a purely unknown photo.

I told the Practical Archivist that I wanted to destroy the pictures I couldn't identify because I didn't want the next generation to be confused as to who might be in the photos.  It was then that she told me about Dead Fred.  I didn't have the heart to tell her my grandmother went through her photo albums and removed and destroyed all the non-family pictures, because she said, they had no meaning to anyone but herself.  I know this because I watched her do it.  Had there been an Internet then, I might have saved them and found out if anyone wanted them.  Now we can.

Comments

[Marian Pierre-Louis]

This is unrelated to Dead Fred but I wanted to leave you a note on a different topic.

Today the Vast Public Indifference blog has posted a gravestone that features one gravestone for two seemingly unrelated men. The stone dates to the 1600s. Since you wrote the book on 17th century sources can you suggest (or provide an answer for) why this might be or if they are actually connected?

Here's the link http://vastpublicindifference.blogspot.com/2010/11/gravestone-of-day-william-burtt-and.html

Thanks!

Marian

[Martin Hollick]

There are four different Burt men who emigrated to Massachusetts in the 17th century: Henry of Springfield, Hugh of Lynn, James of Taunton, and Richard of Sudbury. Since Lynn is the closest to Boston you can try Hugh who appears in the Great Migration 1634-35 I:501-4. His children would be the father of this William chronology-wise, and they are not continued, nor are they in Snow-Estes. Only one William Burt appears in Torreys Marriages, but I dont have the full set at hand to see what source Torrey used.

I think the main clue is that James Wood was of London. Boston has a huge 17th century population of people just passing through. However, the Hugh Burt family was from Dorking, Surrey, not too far from London, and Hugh Burt received a legacy from his brother John of London. There may be a connection. Im not expert enough on gravestones to know why any two people would share a gravestone.