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Wednesday, September 12, 2012

Alamitos Beach Neighborhood Association Publishes Samuel Crouch picture

You never know what a Wordless Wednesday post will bring...

I posted a picture of Samuel Crouch (1840-1931) of Long Beach, California in (Not So) Wordless Wednesday - Post 125: Samuel Crouch on 20 October 2010.  Two weeks ago, I received an email from the editor of the Alamitos Beach Neighborhood Association newsletter, Caitlin Crest, asking of they could use the photograph on the front page of their newsletter.

I immediately thought "perhaps a distant cousin will see this on the cover" and "no one else has this photograph." I, of course, agreed to let her use the photograph with a description of the picture (essentially what I put on the blog post above) and credit to myself and a mention of the Genea-Musings blog URL.

The picture appeared on the front page of the Fall 2012 issues of the newsletter this week - Caitlin sent me several copies of it.  The headline says "Samuel Crouch Would Have Loved Our Farmer's Market."  The article describes the Farmer's Market held every Tuesday afternoon in the Alamitos Beach neighborhood.

I was wondering if Samuel Crouch resided in the Alamitos Beach neighborhood boundary, and asked Caitlin for information.  She made a Google Map and outlined the neighborhood and the location of the Crouch farm at 627 Chestnut Street in Long Beach (determined from 1920 and 1930 U.S. Census):


As you can see, the neighborhood is just east of downtown Long Beach and south of East 4th Street with the Bay to the south.  627 Chestnut Street is just west of downtown Long Beach between West 6th and 7th Streets.  Caitlin also went the next step to determine if the Crouch house still exists, but found that it is a modern apartment house at the address.  

The lesson here is that local neighborhoods may have newsletters, associations, historical photographs, etc. in their files or in local libraries or historical societies.  These may be absolutely unique resources to be found nowhere else.  

As family historians, we need to investigate every potential resource that might hold clues to our ancestors lives (and the lives of their relatives, since they provide insight into our ancestors lives).  Some of these resources may be online, but the vast majority of them are not - they are hiding in vertical files, dusty shelves, attics, basements, and thrift stores all over the country.

My thanks to Caitlin Crest, editor of the Alamitos Beach Neighborhood Association newsletter, for the opportunity to share my photograph, and for asking permission to use it.

The URL for this post is:  http://www.geneamusings.com/2012/09/alamitos-beach-neighborhood-association.html

Copyright (c) 2012, Randall J. Seaver

2 comments:

  1. Randy, that is really cool! And you are right, we need to exhaust every possible resource for clues about our ancestors!

    Denise

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  2. Wonderful post! Thanks so much for sharing... genealogy and family history research works over a long time frame - not just on instant gratification! ;-)

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