Newspaper Archives and Census Records: Reconstructing An Ancestor's Life

As a seasoned family history researcher, I can say from experience the use of genealogy research sites and online databases has never been better than now. And with all sorts of new technology designed especially for family researchers becoming available every day, online genealogy research in 2011 and future years will see drastic improvements. 


I first began my foray into online family research in 1997, when ancestry.com was still relatively new, and when familysearch.org was not yet available. Actually, my very first trek on the genealogy trail took me to the Family History Center at the local LDS Church, where I searched the International Genealogy Index (IGI) and requested the loan of microfilmed copies of several books and various records located in Salt Lake City.  The information I received during that first visit, and from a later review of the microfilmed documents I had requested, was enough to get my own family research off to a fantastic start. I will be forever grateful to volunteers at that Family Research Center who were not only expert researchers themselves, but were so willing to help a novice like me. That was fourteen years ago, and technology has definitely changed the research world.  Now anyone who has an internet connection, which is practically everywhere, and a PC, laptop, MacBook, notebook, i-phone, or similar device, can make use of all sorts of websites and databases that contain a mind-boggling amount of family history data.


During the past two weeks, I wrote a series of posts that began when I found the name Carlotta Nelson Fairchild on a grave marker in a cemetery in Goodman, Mississippi.  The Fairchild part of the name is what peaked my interest, since two of my children have Fairchild ancestors in their family trees. Interestingly, initial research for a possible connection to Fairchild names that I already knew suddenly took me in a totally different direction.  Once I learned that Carlotta had married someone from New Orleans, I wanted to know more.  And it was with little more than articles from newspaper archives (the Times-Picayune, in this case), census records, and references in an online book or two, that I was able to reconstruct and write about Carlotta's life and the lives of her huband and children.


The most amazing part of this project were the details revealed in newspaper articles, specifically the society pages of the New Orleans Times-Picayune. Not only did the articles chronicle a plethora of parties and other social events, they often provided in-depth details about engagements, marriages, births, and christenings. Without information available in the newspaper articles, discovering details about Carlotta and her family members would have taken months, if not years, to find. In fact, some of the very personal information revealed in those articles might have been available only through interviews of individuals who knew the family well, a task that would have been impossible so many years later.


Although the newspaper archives provided much of the substance for my posts, census records definitely made up the foundation for my research. Initially, I searched census records available for Mississippi on ancestry.com for "Carlotta Nelson" and "Carlotta Fairchild" , beginning with 1900 and continuing through 1930.  When I came up with nothing, I opened up my search to include census records for all states.  Bingo!  Carlotta Fairchild was shown on the 1910 U. S. Census record for New Orleans, Louisiana, where she was living with her husband and his adult children in a household that had five servants. I was both surprised and amazed that Carlotta, the daughter of Danish immigrants, whose father was a dry goods merchant in the tiny turn-of-the-century hamlet of Goodman, Mississippi, was a society matron living in the Garden District of one of the Old South's grandest cities. Although I had found nothing to connect Carlotta Nelson Fairchild to the Mississippi Fairchild family that I was researching, I knew at that moment that Mrs. Louis Howes Fairchild had a story that needed to be told.


The rest of Carlotta's story appears in previous posts on this blog.  If your haven't already read the story, I invite you to do so.  The introduction to this series of seven posts can be found here.

Christine Fairchild - Daughter of Carlotta Nelson and Louis Fairchild

This is the fifth in a series of posts about Carlotta Nelson Fairchild and her family.  Today's post is about her daughter, Christine.


Christine Fairchild, born in New Orleans on October 30, 1911, was likely named for her maternal grandmother, Christiane Frederikkson Nelson.  She was the first child born to Carlotta and the eleventh child fathered by Louis Fairchild.  Although her father's first marriage to Mary Winnemore Fairchild had produced a total of ten children, only six had lived to adulthood, five daughters and a son. With Christine's birth, Louis now had seven living children. At the time of her birth, Christine's father, as a member of the New Orleans Cotton Exchange and the New York Cotton Exchange, was able to provide his family security and many of life's comforts.  And it is almost certain that Christine, as her mother's only natural child and her father's youngest, received more than her share of her parents' attention.  

Archives of the social pages of the Times-Picayune, the New Orleans newspaper, offer extensive insight into Christine Fairchild's young life.  At least one trip to Goodman, Mississippi, to visit Carlotta's relatives who still lived in that area, was reported in those pages. Although their mode of travel was not mentioned, it seems likely that Christine and her family would have ridden the Panama Limited, a "premier all-pullman train" whose northbound route made stops in Mississippi between New Orleans and its destination of Chicago.  Since Christine's maternal grandmother lived until 1917, it seems certain the young girl would have become acquainted during these trips with the woman for whom she was named.  Also living in Holmes County, Mississippi during this time were Florena ("Rena") Nelson, Christine's unmarried aunt, and her uncle, William J. Nelson, and his family.  Back in New Orleans, Christine and her extended family of half-sisters, a half-brother, and their respective families, often enjoyed summers spent at "The Myrtles," the Fairchild's beach cottage in Waveland, Mississippi, sometimes spending as much as two months at one time.

But in 1918, tragedy struck the Fairchild family when Louis Fairchild, then a 69 year old father of seven, died after an extended illness. Married to her husband for slightly less than ten years, Carlotta Nelson Fairchild became a widow with a seven year old daughter. 

Next:  "Life Without a Father"


Sources:
Times-Picayune, Archived newspaper artiles, 1900 - 1920, accessed online Jan. 11, 2011


New York Times, Archived copies of newspaper articles, 1910 - 1918, accessed online Jan. 11, 2011

Carlotta Nelson Fairchild - A New Life in New Orleans

This is the fourth in a series of posts about Carlotta Nelson, a daughter of Danish immigrants who was born in 1874 in Goodman, Mississippi.  


Carlotta was first married to R. E. Anderson, a man who was eleven years her senior, on June 17, 1897 in Holmes County, Mississippi.  As far as I can determine, the marriage produced no children and ended when Anderson died in 1901. According to his tombstone in the Nelson family plot in Hillcrest Cemetery in Goodman, Anderson was born in Copenhagen, Denmark. Based on family customs during that time period, it is likely that Carlotta's marriage to Mr. Anderson was an arranged one.  


No information is available about what Carlotta did after her first husband's death, or where she lived.  It is possible that she left Holmes County after her husband died, although I have been unable to find information that fills the gap between 1901 and 1909 when she married Louis Fairchild. Without that information, it is impossible to know the sort of life Carlotta lived during the years she was married Anderson or during the eight years that followed his death.  But one thing was certain, Carlotta's new life as Mrs. Louis Howes Fairchild was destined to be very different from her life in Holmes County, Mississippi.


When Louis Fairchild and Carlotta Nelson Anderson married on June 8, 1909 at Trinity Church, Fairchild already was a well-established businessman and civic leader, working as a "cotton broker" at the New Orleans Cotton Exchange.  During the halcyon days when cotton truly was "king," one can safely assume that Fairchild's position produced ample income to live a privileged life in the Crescent City. 


Archived copies of Times-Picayune society pages provide much insight into the life of the Fairchild family during the early half of the 1900s. Louis Fairchild's daughters, well-educated and properly introduced to New Orleans society, had many friends and were frequent guests at parties and weddings. Lydia, the oldest of Fairchild's daughters, had served as Queen of Mardi Gras and later had married her King Rex, Edward Turner Howard, a wealthy philanthropist with deep New Orleans roots.  According to an article in the New York Times, the marriage of Queen Lydia and King Rex (Edward) was the only time in New Orleans history that a Mardi Gras Queen had ever married her King.  


Another daughter, Mary H. Fairchild, had been married to her husband, Leonard K. Nicholson, for about four years prior to her father's marriage to Carlotta. In November of 1910, just a few months after Louis and Carlotta celebrated their first wedding anniversary, Hazel, the youngest Fairchild daughter, was presented as a debutante to New Orleans society.  That same fall, Edmond, Louis Fairchild's only son, married his bride.   


In 1910, the Fairchild family lived in a residence located at 916 St. Charles Street, now St. Charles Avenue, a long street that runs from downtown New Orleans through what is known as the "Garden District."  The Fairchild house was located near Lee Circle, within a short walk of the New Orleans City Hall, Carondolet and Baronne Streets, and the bustling businesses and stores of turn-of-the century downtown New Orleans. Nearby, at 700 St. Charles Street, Louis Fairchild and his son, Edmond, owned and operated Fairchild Motor Car Co., Inc., a thriving local automobile dealership


By 1912, the New Orleans cotton market was booming, automobile sales were growing, and Carlotta was pregnant with Lou. According to available information, Louis Fairchild also owned large brick residences at 902, 904, 906, and 908 St. Charles Street, a two story parking garage at 632 St. Joseph Street, and a summer beach house at Waveland, Mississippi. 
is's child.  Life was good for the Fairchild Family.


Next:  A New Fairchild Daughter


Source:  
Footnote.com. Times-Picayune.  Archived newspaper copies 1900 - 1940.  Accessed online on January 11, 2011.
New York Times. Archived news articles, Accessed online January 11, 2011.