The Hart Scrapbook & Hart Birthday Books

The scrapbook that you came here to read today was sent to me by Mrs. Virginia Misch of Lockport, N. Y. Ginny, like myself, has ancestry who lived on Line Rd., near Depauville in the Town of Clayton, Jefferson County, N. Y. You will note a few items from Felts Mills-Carthage area, as well as other communities not far from the Watertown, N. Y. area.

A few weeks ago Ginny, knowing how I love to type the contents of scrapbooks, asked me if I would be interested in typing a scrapbook made by a member of her Hart family. She says every time she looked at this book she realized how useful the clippings could be to others -- because the obits, in particular, give great information (some of them) on immigration times and places in Germany from where many of the deceaseds migrated. Although Ginny is not sure who took the time to accumulate this treasure, she believes a portion of it was done by her grandfather, John Burton Hart. That is not to say, however, that her great-grandmother, Emma Patchin Hart, wasn’t responsible for some of the pages.

The scrapbook was sent to me in page order; however, it has become necessary for me to break up the material into categories like obits, marriages, community interest items, birthday celebrations, anniversaries, etc. Doing this turned out to be a page-by-page presentation -- i.e., all the obits on a particular page appear together -- then, I moved to the next page where there were obits. It becomes quite obvious that the dates are all jumbled up. It looks to me as though whoever pasted in these items, did them by family.

A great deal of the material has no date or any way of determining a date; and if there was a penned-in date, I have typed in that date parenthetically at the heading. Most of the items do not indicate a newspaper from which the item was taken; but occasionally, you will see an indication, as in “Special to the Standard.”

As I type these, I notice the reference to “this city.” Surely, this will pose questions from the reader. Some of us are acquainted enough with the city of Watertown or Clayton to know that it could be one of those cities, but don’t look for a definite determination unless you have ready access to the newspaper microfilm of the day.

Where there is indication of a photo, I haven’t taken the time to scan the photo and post it with the text -- doubt it would come out clearly anyway. Ginny and I agreed that perhaps Flower Memorial’s Genealogy Department would like the photostatic copies for their collection. Therefore, if the library is interested in taking same, you may go to their collection to view these photos. Ginny has the original scrapbook in her possession.

Now.....about an index! I’m afraid that’s something I won’t get to for a long time, if ever. I suggest that you use the “Search” feature on your computer, as I’m not sure if the Search feature on my homepage has sufficient capacity to handle this new input.

I’m sure you will join with me in thanking Ginny Misch for her kindness in letting us peek into the pages of this wonderful keepsake.

Site Hostess,
Shirley Conklin Farone
Ashland, OH

September 7, 2001

P. S. March 17, 2004: I have added a list of names found in the Hart birthday books. Ginny sent me this list some time ago. Be sure to look for this after the Scrapbook Book Index.

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