A version of this post was published 14 February 2018 under the title “Assumptions that Don’t Hold Up,” but in light of some new information I am copying the original and greatly revising it and adding new information. I will make private the original so that there is no confusion. I worry about adding layers of information and replicating possibly faulty information.
Funny that the old title has become ironic.
At the time that I first posted, I’d never seen this photo until about two years before when I received it from my uncle. This is my paternal grandmother and her siblings (all except for Helen–I thought at the time–who was not yet born).
The four children are:
Elisabetha Anna Maria Klein, born 1891 in Budesheim, Germany, raised in Elmhurst, Illinois
Maria Anna Elisabetha Klein, born 1892 (often documented as 93) in Budesheim, Germany, raised in Elmhurst, Illinois
Anna Elisabetha Maria Klein, born 1893 in Budesheim, Germany, raised in Elmhurst, Illinois
Frank Anthony Klein, born 1896 in Chicago, Illnois, raised in Elmhurst, Illinois
I know that Elizabeth is the girl standing in back, the oldest and tallest. I know that Frank is in front. Anna is on our left (their right) and Maria (Grandma Marie) is on our right (their left). At the time of first posting, I wasn’t absolutely sure who was Anna and who was Marie, but I now feel confident with this identification.
My grandmother and her siblings had another sister who came along in 1910, and that was Helen. Her unlikely name was Helen Nevada Klein. I would love to figure out where that middle name came from.
I have many photos of Grandma, Anna, and Helen who were the three siblings who lived into older age. I also believe I have a photo of Frank as an adult and possibly of Elizabeth. A second cousin shared Elizabeth’s confirmation photo with me.
Now he has shared another photo, taken in 1918 in Chicago, of Elizabeth with his own mother Grace (the baby) and Aunt Anna. To give you an idea of how difficult it can be to determine ages from old photos, Elizabeth is holding the baby and is two years older than Anna in the darker outfit.
This is the first photo I’ve seen of Elizabeth around this age; she was 26. What a pretty young woman, especially animated in a big smile.
OK, above I said that I thought the top photo had all the siblings except Helen. But the other night I was goofing around on my iPad and saw a hint on my great-grandmother Margarethe Klein’s Ancestry page. The hint directed me to the index of the birth of a little boy in 1906, ten years after the birth of Frank, Jr. George Joseph Klein was born 21 August 1906 in Chicago. I quickly did a search for a death record. Sure enough, he passed away 24 March 1909, not even 3 years old yet. I know that my father never knew of George’s short, tragic life.
I feel frustrated because I wanted to order the records from Cook County, but because of the pandemic the office is closed down. I will have to wait to read the cause of death.
Now back to the top photo again. The birthdates of the kids are 1891, 1892, 1893, and 1896. I guess the photo was taken before George was born in 1906, so do you think that narrows the photo to 1902-1906? Yes? No?
Clearly, the family was still living in Chicago and had not yet moved to Elmhurst and bought the farmhouse. This is important because I have not been able to find a 1900 census report on the family. Do you think the records on George would divulge an address for the family or not?
The name George is also mystifying to me because the way the family named the oldest girls and Frank, it was family name, family name, family name. George’s middle name of Joseph is for Margarethe’s father Josephus Wendel. But I don’t see a George in the family. Maybe that was paving the way for Helen’s middle name Nevada?!
RIP George Joseph Klein. You are finally remembered again.
The Family Kalamazoo 
So many short lives in that period. Good to remember one
Thank you, Derrick. You are right. It happened so often. I don’t even know why I was surprised. It just seems odd that families don’t pass on memories of the children that died young.
I would have had a paternal uncle who was killed by a car mounting the pavement when he was 7. That’s all I know about him.
That is super sad. Very tragic and completely without warning.
Hi Luanne – great reposting~revising post, love when things really begin to fall into place and new secret discoveries are uncovered. I do think the photo falls into that time period but closer to early, like 1903/1904 only because 1906 would make Frank 10 and he doesn’t look 10.
Oh, I’m glad you said that. I actually thought that about Frank, but wanted to see what readers thought without putting the idea out there haha. Yes, I agree and am glad you saw it, too!
Luanne, that’s so funny about the name George in your family. My paternal grandfather was also named George, which is the first time the name appears in my ancestry tree. William and James were common in every generation, but my grandfather was born in 1898. His middle name was Patton so I had thought maybe he was named for the American general. However, General George Patton was born in 1885 and not particularly famous until WWII.
I have to admit none of my relatives were named Nevada.
All very mysterious, but thanks for the info. Great work.
Another coincidence in our families–this time about George! But how odd that yours is George Patton and yet before the general. Wow! Thanks, Sheila. I am just keeping on keeping on filling in the gaps. Helps to keep me from going nuts right now . . . .
I agree with Sharon—Frank looks more like six or seven at the most in the photo.
It seems there was a large gap between Frank and George (ten years). I wonder if there were more babies who died or miscarriages in between. And then Helen came within a year of George’s death. I wonder if she was conceived to fill the emotional hole left after George died.
Yes, I am so glad that you and Sharon saw that, too, because that was my take on the photo. So that really narrows down the date of the photograph, which is great!
That is possible about Helen, especially since the period of one after another childbearing had obviously passed for Margarethe.
Love that second candid photo!
That’s my favorite, too!
Thank you. Me too!! That smile!!!
I definitely think that Frank is less than 10 years old so your dates of 1902 to 1906 are in the ballpark. What was the father’s name in this family?
Their father was Frank Klein, so Frank Sr., although in Germany he was born Franz Anton Klein.
Yes, I think about 1902 or 1903. I have a Nevada in my tree, too. In some families I find geographic names popular. I suspect that some immigrants liked the name George for George Washington. Sometimes you find Washington as the middle name, but probably not always. It’s a nice tribute to your adopted country.
Interesting!
OK, that is just a huge coincidence about the Nevada. Was there some reason for this? Nevada became a state in 1864, so it wasn’t that in Helen’s case. You are probably right about George Washington. By the time George was born the family was probably starting to feel more American.
After Virginia said she has a Nevada in her family tree I thought I’d look it up. https://www.babycenter.com/baby-names-nevada-22365.htm
The Nevada in my tree was born in 1868, so a bit closer to the statehood event that you noted.
Interesting! What I didn’t realize is that it’s an actual name for girls.
Always so rewarding to find a new clue that helps fill out the picture!
But I have to admit the repetition of names and naming traditions can make me crazy! Especially when one doeant have an exact age, and there are multiple branches of the family with cousins of a similar age in the same area. And oh, yeah, the census is an early one so there are no addresses or names of wives/siblings.
Or maybe, like me, you discover a wealth of tax assessment records for John Kreighbaum in the right county, but for there are two, three, four for the same years! AND, of course, the township is missing from the top of the documents on about half.
Time to start a spreadsheet again! I am determined to figure this out. 🙄
For all my whining, I love genealogy.
LOL, I feel your pain, Kym! It is enough to drive someone crazy, isn’t it?! I love it, too, but it can be so so frustrating!!!! Good luck!
The Squire has been researching his family tree, and the names James, William, and Thomas repeat endlessly. It drives him bats! Of course, every once in a while somebody goes hog-wild; he has one great-grandfather named Lemon Dew, and a cousin with the middle name Picayune. And there is one fellow – an only child – blessed with the name Alpha Omega. One of his aunts told me she thought her ancestors had so many kids they started making up names – and I believe it!
Ok, he wins the prize for the best names! My ancestors were so conventional!
I have a woman with the first name Nevada on my tree and also wondered where that came from. The family had no record of living there.
I had to completely revise one post after finding through DNA that I had the wrong parents for my 2x great-grandmother. Her parents died when she was very young and she was raised by an uncle. I ended up keeping the original post and putting cross-out lines through the bad text so people could still see it, then I added the new information.
Now I am wondering if maybe the name was popular for a while. Do you know what year she was born? It is so frustrating to find out you had bad information. I debated how to handle this situation and decided to do it this way because I thought if I tried to change this much info it would be confusing. Thanks, Virginia!
You know, about this Nevada thing. The only woman I know of is Nevada Barr, who writes the Anna Pigeon mystery series. Mind you, there are a lot of women named Caroline and Virginia, so there’s that. Still, to me Nevada sounds vaguely masculine.
I had forgotten about Nevada Barr. Maybe it is just a regular ole female name that has rarely been used except for a little period of time there. From Wikipedia: “Although Barr was born in Yerington, Nevada, she was named not after her state of birth but after a character in one of her father’s favorite books.[1] “What book I would like to know!
Look at this. https://www.babycenter.com/baby-names-nevada-22365.htm