February 1, 2015

Dress box full of photos and documents originating in Utah returned to Arkansas family

Barbara Jacobs family photoReturned pictures to Barbara Jacobs' family

A whole dress box full of genealogy records, pictures from the late 1800’s to 2000, a few letters, and other documents.  Sounds like an easy mystery to solve, right?  This one took me awhile.  After the newspaper in Clinton ran a story about me returning photos to descendants, I was contacted by Nina Swan who had acquired this box inside another box at an auction at Choctaw, Arkansas.  She asked if I could try to figure out who to return it to. Using FamilySearch.org, I immediately figured out the owner of the box, Barbara Jacobs, had been born in Texas and died in Utah.  The challenge was finding descendants.  The family group sheets did not include her grandchildren and with a fairly common name and common children’s names, I was initially stumped.  Finally I examined a child’s worksheet by Courtney called, About Me.  Courtney, I presumed, was likely Barbara’s granddaughter. Courtney probably prepared this as an Achievement Day activity at church.  The sheet listed her brothers’ names.  Armed with this information I searched a stake church roster and found Courtney’s brothers living in Central Arkansas.  Above, the box is returned to family.

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