The Shelton Image Collection

I have decided to name it the Shelton Images Collection. I am going to make it my first fully described archived collection. It is a small self-contained set, so I should be able to accomplish this. I know how important it is to do this, partly from wishing the person I obtained any materials from had done it for me. Alas, when pieces from family members get passed down, in dribs and drabs, that doesn’t often happen. Not in my family anyway. I aspire to do better.

This collection of images is different from most of my others. I obtained them from eBay, all at one time, with a very short description attached. Here’s how it happened. When I started listening to Lisa Louise Cooke’s podcast, one of her suggestions was to set up searches on eBay for places your ancestors had lived. She talked about finding neat things that related to ancestors’ lives and even discovering new information this way. Cool idea, thought I. And at some later point (much later, since I am often slow to follow through on this kind of intention) I tried it out. That was how I found the high school year book for my mother. And learning how to successfully bid in the auctions on eBay is another story!

I also set up a search for Wakeman Ohio, thinking I would love to find a high school year book or other material for my grandfather and his family. Given my recent success with my mother’s year book, I went back to eBay, and renewed a number of the searches I had set up. These searches last a finite amount of time and then they stop sending you email when they’ve found anything and you have to go back and renew them. Soon after I did that, and spent a morning rummaging around the eBay site looking at things, I got a message from my Wakeman search with the family name Shelton in it. The description sent to me was “10 vintage cabinet photos-Wakeman Ohio-Haines Studio-Shelton 1898”. The cabinet photos caught my eye immediately and when I realized that the name and date meant they were likely part of my mother’s family I went to take a look at the offering.

I was thrilled to see the complete description. “—–LOT OF 10 OLD-VINTAGE FAMILY CABINET PHOTO’S…THE 2 TOP PICTURES OF THE SAME BABY,BOTH ARE MARKED–“ELBERT MINOR SHELTON,5 MONTHS OLD..25 LBS.”; THE OLDER MAN WITH A LONG GRAY BEARD IS MARKED “HENRY S. SHELTON 1898? ON THE BACK…..ALL OF THESE ARE MARKED “HAINES,WAKEMAN OHIO” STUDIO.” The seller described buying the pictures at an estate sale, where she was told they would only sell the lot together since they were from the same family. What she was offering was that same lot of 10.

I knew as soon as I saw the baby’s name that this was our family – at least the baby picture. I opened my computer database to look at names and refresh my memory on this line. Sure enough, Elbert was the son of Nellie Minor and Myron Shelton. Myron was the son of Henry S. Shelton. So I knew there was at least a picture of the grandson Elbert and grandfather Henry. Nellie Minor Shelton was the sister of my great grandmother, Mamie

Minor Denman. This is the baby Elbert – the back of the photo gives his full name and that he was 5 months old and weighed 25 pounds. You have to love it! And here is his grandfather, Henry S. Shelton, who would have been about 66 years old if the date (1898) on the back is correct.

I have my work cut out for me to identify the other people in the photos. They are all from the same photography studio so I am hoping that the variation of the logos will help date them. I am also hoping I can lure one of my cousins into helping, or at least looking at them. There are individual pictures of a man and woman who *could* be baby Elbert’s proud parents. And there is an irresistable one of a young child who *might* be Elbert at around 2-3 years of age. I think this picture is a little boy – what do you think? Luckily, to describe the collection I don’t think I have to have all the images identified.