The Kull Family Website » Max

“Mystery Photo” Identified – Samuel Atkinson family

Max — Fri, 26 Aug 2016 16:58:13 +0000

This picture has been in my “most wanted” section for over a year. It was found in my Aunt Elaine Webster’s collection after her death. Thanks to Bill Atkinson of Winfield, Alabama, we now have names to go with these faces. Front left to right: Samuel M. Atkinson, Nancy Atkinson, Susan Nix Atkinson. Rear left to right: William Charles Atkinson, Bascom Poole Atkinson, and David Hollis Atkinson. Samuel and Susan were “next door” neighbors as children in Pickens County, South Carolina. They married there in the early 1870’s and started a family. By the early 1880’s they had moved to Georgia (don’t know the county since the 1890 census burned up). They relocated to Fayette County, Alabama in the early 1890’s.

Census images taken off the site

Max — Thu, 07 Apr 2016 03:52:52 +0000

That’s actually good news. I just recently discovered that the folks over at familysearch have apparently made all the U.S. Census images available there and they can be viewed for free. Their search function is not as capable as the ones at ancestry.com and other pay sites but the price is certainly better. This was really good timing for me as I was nearing my disk quota limits on the site so I can save a lot of space by linking to the images at the family search site. The only downside is that if they ever change their url’s, all the links here (and there are a lot of them) will be broken. I’ve put enough information on the link descriptions so that, even if that happens, you should still be able to find the images on their site. Browse your relatives on the site and if you see this icon you can click it to view the census image.

Coming attractions

Max — Sat, 27 Jun 2015 03:57:40 +0000

I expect to die in bed, my successor will die in prison and his successor will die a martyr in the public square. His successor will pick up the shards of a ruined society and slowly help rebuild civilization, as the church has done so often in human history. – Cardinal Francis George (2010)

Happy Birthday to my favorite genealogist

Max — Sat, 11 Apr 2015 17:06:28 +0000

Today would have been my cousin Rosa’s 87th birthday. We lost her last August but she will always linger near in our hearts. Anyone who has an interest in our family history and roots owes a huge debt to her. She spent massive amounts of time and money digging out records to trace our ancestors. This was well before the internet made these kinds of efforts so much easier. She was always generous in sharing what she found and is, in large part, responsible for planting the interest in me.

Cousins Rosa and Max about 1955 at our grandparents’ farm

When I was just out of college and working outside of Washington, D.C., I made a couple of trips to places in Virginia to run down some information for her. During that time she sent me a lot of photocopied correspondence from various state and county officials there. In those days, there were no searchable databases. You would generally have to send a letter to a county clerk or other official requesting a search for a particular individual. If you got lucky, you got a letter back saying they had found something and that for some nominal fee they could make a photocopy and send to you. That new piece of information might lead to your next search and on it would go. I can’t imagine the patience and determination it required to keep at it – but she did.

Rosa and Max looking over family photos at her home in St. Louis in 2005

Her research and correspondence exhibited the meticulousness of a librarian (which she was). I can remember when I was a child, her Christmas presents to my sisters and I were *always* books. My mother always loved her doing that and looking back, I can see that she had put a lot of thought into her selections. Quite often they were Newberry Medal winners (for children’s books). I learned that if she gave me a book, it would be something that I would actually enjoy reading.

I also remember fondly the “home movies” that she and husband, Bill, would show us on their visits to Alabama. I think they were some of the first folks we knew who had a movie camera and projector for personal use. I particularly enjoyed the ones of their various float trips along rivers in Arkansas. They also shot a lot of film from family get togethers and somewhere in their collection (I hope Ellen runs across it) is a film of my grandparents on the porch of the family farm near Ardmore.

Living in different parts of the country, I didn’t get to see her as much as I would have liked. I don’t think anyone loved and valued her family any more than she did and in later years she would make regular trips to check in on aging relatives. I’m proud to have been able to share the same family with her.

Hammerli Cousins

Max — Tue, 07 Apr 2015 03:15:50 +0000

Ellen Wright, my cousin Rosa’s daughter, has been going through her mother’s collection of family photos and has come across some real gems. With her permission, I’ll be adding a lot of these to the site. I did want to put a couple here in the blog since these are some of the relatives that stayed behind in Switzerland. The first one is a very nice shot of our family kin. Mother, Selina Kull was the sister of Fred and Julius. She was married to Adolph Hammerli and they had six children that I know of – Selina, Friedrich, Elsa, Eugen, Julius, and Arthur.

Seated – L to R: Selina, Adolph, daughter Selina
Standing – L to R: Unknown, Elsa, probably Eugen

Ellen’s information had the two young men as being possible spouses of Elsa and Selina. I think it is more likely that they are brothers. The one on the right looks like another picture we have that was labeled as being an older Eugen. I have another photo identified as Elsa’s husband. He was considerably older than her and does not look like either of the young men here.

Selina and Elsa Hammerli

The picture above was a “slam dunk” since the names were written above the two girls. I’m delighted that Ellen has shared these. My hope is that one day, some of the Hammerli descendents will see these and contact us.