Is This My Grandfather's Car in 1922?

 Until now, I didn't know what kind of car my maternal grandfather, Lyle L. Carringer (1891-1976) drove in the 1920 time frame.  I knew he had a car, I even have photos of the car with my mother as a baby (see Betty On the Carringer Car in 1919 -- Post 673 of (Not So) Wordless Wednesday).  I thought that the car was probably a Model-T Ford.  

I was wrong.  Now I think it was a 1919 Chevrolet Touring Car, like this one:

How do I know?  Well, Ancestry.com has a new genealogy record collection called "California, U.S., Registrations of Motor Vehicles, 1905-1922."  I searched this collection for "Carringer" and found several, including my grandfather.  Here is the top of the page with his record for 1922:

Whew.  that is really a name and data rich page, isn't it.  The headings for each column are for License No., Engine No., Year of Car, Make, Model, Owner, Owner's Address, County Key No.

Note that all of the entries have only initials for given names, and abbreviations for street names to make it all fit on one line.  Different years in this database have different headings.

Lyle's entry is in the lower right-hand corner of the page:

So the information for him includes:

* License No.: 648399
* Engine No.: c1906
* Year of Car: 19 [meaning 1919]
* Make: Chev[rolet]
* Model: Trg [Touring]
* Owner: CarringerLL
* Owner's Address: 2054Hrrisn SanDiego [Harrison Ave.]
* County Key No.: 37

Apparently, that is my grandfather's car in 1922.  But is it the car in the photograph with my mother as a baby?  I don't think so - that may be a Model-T.  Or another car.  Why? Because the fender above the wheel is different from my mother's photo and the car photo of the 1919 Chevolet Touring Car at the top of this post.  

Not saitisfied with only this record, I searched the database for my great-grandfather's car also.  He had entries in 1914, 1915, 1917, 1921 and 1922.  In 1914 he had a 1914 Ford Touring car with 22.5 hp;  In 1917 he had a Ford Touring car; in 1922 he had a 1914 Ford Touring car.  It must have served him well!   

That is a 1914 Ford Model-T Touring Car.  And that looks like the car in the baby photo. So the mystery is resolved - my mother was sitting on her grandfather's car in 1919!  Lyle probably learned to drive on this car, and eventually bought his 1919 Chevrolet Touring car by 1922.

Well, that was fun to solve the mystery of "what car did my grandfather drive in 1919 and 1922?"  

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