ROOTS & BRANCHES

A photo that has come down in my family – truthfully, I believe it’s the oldest photo showing my direct-line ancestors that can be conclusively dated – was taken in 1897 and bears the title “Our Home” and the imprint of the “United States View Co.”

Shown in the photo are a pair of my great-great-grandparents Wellington and Emma Machmer as well as three of their eight children.

In the same way that many county biographical histories were compiled around this time, such photos were part of a commercial venture, according to Maureen Taylor, who trades as The Photo Detective as is generally the go-to person for anything to do with photography and genealogy.

“There were companies that traveled about photographing the countryside then selling the images,” Taylor said. “United States View Co. operated in Philadelphia from 1894 to 1898 at 1215 Race St.”    

I’ve posted this photo on Facebook—indeed that social medium’s “Your Memories” function tells me it was my “most commented” upon photo from 2011—and recently reposted it.

In the posts I’ve referenced that the property was the place my high school classmate Iris Peifer Radom grew up.

And that led Peter Engel, another classmate, to opine that the photo’s depiction of the landscape was off—“too sloped for that area.”

Which was when I knew I’d been caught with my genealogical pants down. Because the reason I “knew” that this was place was simply because my mother had told me so.

So I realized I needed to do a deed search to make sure that there was a paper trail of documents consistent with that oral tradition.

Fortunately, because of the fine efforts of Berks County’s former Recorder of Deeds Fred Sheeler, the county’s old deeds are searchable online.

The story from my mother as I recalled it was that before the Machmers ended up in the house I now own, they had lived at a place called Leiningers (after a later owner) and that before that had lived at what would become the Peifer home.

Deeds showing that the Machmers lived at Leiningers from 1902 to 1920 were easy to find.

Land transactions for the Peifer property were more difficult to analyze, but they told this story: That about 2 acres had been an 1851 inheritance of Wellington’s mother Catharine (Bickel) Machmer and after her death in 1877 passed with dower rights to her husband Amos Machmer and their children after his death in 1889.

Only in 1902 was a deed drawn up conveying the land to Wellington from his siblings, just in time for him to sell it legally and buy the Leininger property.

So I was right all along to trust my mom’s recollections. But it’s better to have that recollection verified by documentary proof.