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Top o' the Mornin' to Ya! Blog May 13 2020 PART 2
When the 1800's album came into my possession, I too began to wonder who these people were.
Then working backwards in time based on the clothing and hair styles, I soon realized that this album must have belonged to Hanora Flannigan Filben whom dear cousins would have been our great great great grandmother!
With my magnifying glass and a sharp eye, I soon realized that there was one way and one way only to start the identification of these people. So, I scanned each page, colorized them, and while rather a tedious task, took each scan, using the cut and paste method, and then put all the women on a large piece of paper and all then men on the other as shown below.
The album itself was made by The Heinn Specialty Co of Milwaukee Wisconsin established in the early 1800's.
Hanora and Thomas arrived in the states in/around 1850 and their children were soon born after that starting in 1854. Then it stands to reason that this album was hers. Hanora, most likely bought it after collecting all the photos of her children & the generations that followed with more photos added. I suspect that it was passed down to her first born Mary Ann Steele who was Nell's mother. Nell passed down to Grandma Barbara who passed it to Aunt Susan and is now mine as the research continues on the identification.
As I went through the album page by page, I began to use the process of elimination or as Sherlock would say,
There were many photos of young men but only one of a man who would fit the age of a father in his middle age, thus I was able to identify the image below as Thomas Filben who indeed looks like his sons.
The same with Hanora Flannigan who was posing with her daughter Josephine (as pictured on the right) and seemed to be the only middle aged woman.
Between the years of 1854 to 1873 a total of seven children - two boys and five girls were born to the Filben Family!
Mary Ann Filben
Born August 1854
Rev Thomas Filben
Born December 14 1856
Winifred
Born April 5, 1859
Hannah
Born August10,1861
Catherine
Born August10,1861
Josephine
Born abt 1867
Miles
Born abt 1869
Ellen Nellie Filben
Born July 4, 1873
The pictures above are 99% confirmed with the exception of Miles (or also spelled Myles) Filben. This photo above had facial similarities to his older brother Thomas and to his father. Miles was one of nine men within our family who worked as a policeman. His uniform is similar to what they wore in 1898.
To date, I have been unable to find pictures of Winifred along with her twin sisters Catherine Hannah and Hannah.
Early censuses indicates that Filben family first lived on the eastern seaboard. Beginning in 1853 the family lived in Boston, Suffolk, Massachusetts. Eight years later they moved to New London Connecticut until 1867-1868 when the family eventually made their way to San Francisco,California. When the Filben family of Hanora & Thomas arrived it was only with six of their seven children. Winifred age 11 was left behind for reasons unknown.
Upon their arrival in San Francisco, the family temporarily settled into a property (perhaps a boarding house) located on 304 Mission rear. They then moved to the San Francisco ward 7 area (A portion south and east of the said line in Market street running through the center of Fourth street) as shown in this map below.
It was there that the Filben’s settled in a home owned by the Dwyer Family (possible relatives/friends). Incredibly there were altogether 16 people living in this house at the same time consisting of six adults and ten children. Sometime prior to 1870 the Filben's would once again move and this time to the Almaden County area (now known as Santa Clara). Below is a photo taken around the time , the Filben Family lived there.
Amazingly all of Filben Family including children and spouses that were alive in 1906 survived the big quake! Below is a wonderful video with a sound track of a trip down Market Street that was filmed just four days before the 1906 Earthquake!
Enjoy with headphones especially in full screen and you will get a sense of what it was like for our ancestors to spend a day in downtown San Francisco as we ride down Market heading towards the Ferry Building.
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