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The Filben Family ~Mary Ann
Census Takers and Domestic Servants
Our Great Grandma Nell was one of eleven children born to Eugene Moore Steele and Mary Ann Filben.
When I first began this ancestry trip, this picture above was the only confirmed picture of Mary Ann, since the back of the picture (in Grandma Barbara Bruemmer's handwriting) reads, Mom's oldest sister Christine.
That was until I decided to go back through a previous project I had put together a few months ago.
Over the 40 pages within the 1800’s album, there are so many, many, many pictures of men, women and children scattered all over (as shown above) and yet somehow there had to be an organized way to start the identification process.
So over one Sunday afternoon, using the wonderful colorization/enhancement program that My Heritage has available, I re-scanned all 40 pages from the album.
On my computer, I created individual folders on my hard drive (i.e. page 1, 2 and so forth) followed by creating individual sub folders in each one for men, women and children. From there I printed every single photo that were either men or women!
Using large scrapbook pieces of paper, I created one for all the women and one for all the men as shown below. It was my hope that by doing this, I could start to figure out exactly who these other ancestors might be!
Look at bottom row of pictures, then focus your eyes on the middle photo. This woman really stood out for me! I studied her hair as it was piled high upon her head with a wee bit on the sides. In comparison I looked at the white collar and the design of her dress.
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