Old New York Photo Mysteries Ep. 4 (Video)

In episode four of “Old New York Photo Mysteries,” I researched a set of two glass plate photographs that I purchased from eBay. The seller told me that the two pictures came from the same original estate.

When I first started to look into these two old New York photos, I first believed that they were likely both shot in the 1880s. The women in one photograph were wearing clothing that appeared to me to be from no earlier than the 1870s and no later than the 1890s. With all of my experience in looking through old New York reference materials, this was my best guess before doing any research.

The second photograph from old New York shows a child's bedroom, and with dolls present in the room I believed early on that we were looking at where a young girl lived.

So with these two pictures of old New York, I decided to try to figure out who the two women were in the first photograph. I did this by using the address written on the other picture of the bedroom: 112 Kingston Avenue in Brooklyn, NY. Amazingly, reference materials from various websites led me to answers. Also, the quality of the picture of the child's bedroom was still fairly clear, and I was able to make out a lot of the items on the dresser and the shelf in the mirror, including a clock.

You'll see in this video that I was able to find data that allowed me to establish a very likely conclusion on who the two women are. As I say at the end of the video, while I can't climb into a time machine and go back and definitively confirm the information that I've gathered, I believe the two women to be Ella Goldberg and her daughter, Edith.

Be sure to stick around at the end of the video for some moments that surprised me. Thanks for watching.

Keywords from this episode include 112 Kingston Avenue (or Ave.), Brooklyn, New York, Prospect Park, 19th century, 1871, Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Dean Street, 1872, The New York Herald, Elkins House, William V. Hanson, Charles Goldberg, Mrs. C.H. Goldberg, Ella Hanson, Estelle Goldberg, Edith Goldberg, 1888, 1904, Edith G. Berry, William J. Berry, Frank Ruff, 1892, F. Remsen Ryder, Stephen Remsen Ryder Jr., Mrs. S. Remsen Ryder Jr., Margaret and Real Estate Record and Builders' Guide.

Credits

  • Ancestry.co.uk

  • The Bergen Evening Record

  • George Bradford Brainerd

  • The Brooklyn Citizen

  • The Brooklyn Daily Eagle

  • Brooklyn Life

  • Brooklyn Museum

  • The Brooklyn Times

  • The Brooklyn Union

  • eBay

  • The Express

  • FindAGrave.com

  • The New York City Municipal Archives

  • The NYC Historical Vital Records Project

  • The Sunday Record

  • Trow's New York City Directory

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