Those Places Thursday–Webster Family Road Trip: Chicago, Illinois

This is part of a series of posts dedicated to the immigration story of Debs Webster and his family.

Bye Bye New York, Hello Chicago, Illinois!

Debs Webster and his family are on the road again! This time they are leaving New York and heading to Chicago, Illinois.

In my last POST I mentioned that my uncle had emailed me with some very interesting recollections regarding this trip across the USA.  Here’s what he had to say about this leg of their journey:

“We travelled first to Chicago, where Pop’s uncle and some cousins lived. They tried to teach me some English words to no avail. Since I wasn’t using them, I had no retention of the words.”

The uncle he is referring to is Rollin Waterman Webster. He was a brother of my "Traveling Dentist Great-Grandpa" Frederick Webster. I introduced you to sweet Uncle Rollin in this previous POST.

Grandpa Debs’ 1952 photo album shows photos and a vintage postcard from Illinois immediately following those from near Palmyra, New York. With that in mind, I hope I’m correct in assuming they left Palmyra and headed directly to Chicago. If that was the case, then according to GoogleMaps, the trip would have taken about 10 hours!

My uncle also said that my Grandpa Debs was the only one in the group who knew how to drive, so guess who drove the whole way!

GoogleMaps.com

According to a letter from Uncle Rollin to my Grandpa Debs, the last time they saw each other was probably sometime before 1923. So I can imagine how exciting this must have been for them to see each other again after so many years! Actually about 29 years! In 1952 Uncle Rollin would have been about 80 or 81 years old.

The photo below of Rollin was taken in June, 1952 in Chicago. The young man behind him is his grandson Billy.

In 1952 Rollin was living at 8937 South Paulina Street in Chicago. According to Zillow.com, his house was built in 1924. Today’s stats say it is 1,087 square feet in size, and has 1 bathroom. It doesn’t list how many bedrooms it has though.

Rollin Waterman Webster and
Grandson Billy in Chicago - 1952

Back of Photo

The following photo of Rollin was taken in 1942 at the Chicago Loop.



Rollin Waterman Webster
at the Chicago Loop - 1942

Back of Photo

Here’s a map of the Chicago Loop from Wikimedia Commons. It was created using OpenStreetMap.org. Ever heard of it? I hadn’t until I wrote this post. It seems pretty cool. And yes, I’ve added the website to my blog’s Research Toolbox. Here’s the LINK to the Chicago Loop map on OpenStreetMap.org.

Map of Chicago Loop from
Wikimedia Commons via
OpenStreetMap.org

I don’t know how long my Grandpa Debs and his family stayed in Chicago visiting Uncle Rollin and his family, but I’m sure they had a wonderful time.

Unfortunately, it is time to get going again for Debs and his family. The next photos and vintage postcard in Debs’ photo album are from Galena, Illinois.

Why did they stop in Galena, Illinois? Tune in next time to find out.

Thanks for reading!

Jana
 
Copyright © Jana Last 2012

Mappy Monday–Fun with uencounter.me and an Upcoming Cool Feature too!

Have you tried uencounter.me yet?  It’s a virtual pin mapping website.  A while back I created an account, but I have to admit I didn’t pursue it much further than that.

But thanks to Lorine at Olive Tree Genealogy Blog, I gave it another look.  Her recent post Playing with Uencounter.me and Loving it! inspired me to give it another try. And I have to say, I like what I see!

Thomas MacEntee at GeneaBloggers also wrote a great post titled uencounter.me – A Way To Plot Cluster Genealogy Research.  Make sure to check out both Lorine and Thomas's awesome and informative articles.

Here’s an example of what you can do with uencounter.me:

Click to Enlarge


This is a map of where my great-grand uncle, Rollin Waterman Webster, lived in Chicago, Illinois between 1900-1940.  (I added the arrows and labels with SnagIt.)

I have added pins for several different ancestors over the last day or so.  And as I added more pins to my map on uencounter.me, I started to wish there was a way to “tag” individuals or families so only they would show up on the map instead of ALL of my ancestor's pins showing up at one time.

So, I asked about this on uencounter.me’s Facebook page as well as on their blog.  I got an almost immediate response via Facebook.  Here’s our conversation:

Me:  I'm using uencounter.me for genealogy. Is there a way to "tag" different families so I can go to all of their pins without seeing any other pins all over the map?

uencounter.me:  Jana - Welcome to UE! There will be very shortly! We are in the process of finishing up some coding changes that will allow you to create different maps for different family members.... it's the biggest update of features yet! It shouldn't be a long wait and you can keep dropping pins in the meantime... we're creating a way for you to designated the pins you have already placed!

Pretty awesome right?  I’m excited about this update!  Thanks uencounter.me!

Have you tried uencounter.me yet?  What do you think?

Thanks for reading!

UPDATE:  The upcoming cool feature from uencounter.me is up and running!  You can now create customized maps, ie. a different map for each surname, etc.  Awesome!

Thanks for reading!

Jana

Copyright © Jana Last 2012