Long after the discoveries in part 2, I was checking out the Family Search website and noticed that it had a new feature where one could see scans of original birth and death certificates. Curious, I entered Albina’s name and after some fiddling around with various settings found her death certificate.
I was interested to learn that she had died of chronic dysentery on December 19, 1909 and her death was registered at the address in Evanston, Illinois where the postcard had originated. This corroborated my suspicions that the woman depicted on the postcard was Albina Welbourn(e), and inspired me to revisit the 1910 US Census records for Evanston. My previous searches had not yielded any useful information as Evanston was already a sizable town 100 years ago. However, this time I tried a new strategy. First, I used the earliest available ward information (since this changed frequently) to determine which ward the address might have been located in, and then compared them with the current wards to see where the boundaries might have shifted. Next, I opened a map of Evanston in Google Maps and used it to navigate my way through the census data, manually going through the records in search of streets close to Ridge Ave. This eventually led me to the entry for 2251 Ridge Ave, Albina’s address. The residents were listed as Harry Shaffer, his wife Eliza (born in England), and their children Constance, (Herbert) James, Florence and Ethel.
The children’s ages and genders matched the children in the photograph discussed in Part 1 of this story, so I was excited to have likely identified them. The census records indicated that the children had all been born in Missouri, which added another layer of questions. I tracked the family back to Sedalia, Missouri where Eliza, Frank, and the two eldest children were residing at the time of the 1900 US Census.
Albina was not living with them. Her death certificate listed her as moving to Illinois in 1904, 12 years after she arrived in the US with Eliza, so perhaps she was back in England during the 1900 US Census or visiting her son Arthur. However, I have not found her in the 1901 UK census, so her whereabouts during the period from 1892 to 1904 are currently unknown.