29 January 2001: For use of other genealogists interested in descendants of Harry Miles Hazen> (Harrison> Gurdon> William), I am posting some of the documentation, family stories, and pictures I gathered while researching our family for First Families recognition. NOTE: First Families of Ashland County, Ohio is pretty simple to achieve since it only requires documentation back to 1850. So far there are three pages:
1) Some Family Stories
2) Harry Miles and Malinda Zehner Hazen
3) Genealogy Chart

23 January 2001: Cousin Stanley S. Hazen is finally back at work on the new edition of The Hazen Family In America, the single-surname genealogy created by Tracey Hazen back in 1915. Stanley is asking for your family information. He has created a more useable form that you can download and use to provide him with your family's genealogy data. It's important that we all help Stanley complete the genealogy. If you are descended from Edward Hazen who arrived at Rowley, Mass. in 1639, pllease fill out and return your blanks as soon as possible.

18 Nov 1999: Last night 16 members of our family attended the recognition dinner where our pioneer ancestors, Harrison Hazen, Mary Jane Miles, Isaac Zehner, and Leah Long (DeLong?) were celebrated as First Families of Ashland County.

Many thanks and deep appreciation to all those who have so generously offered additional information on these and other relatives since the FFAC announcement was made public.

I am interested in trading pictures, information, and documentation for the following families:

Hazen -- Cadney, Lincolnshire, England prior to 1639, Massachusetts before 1800 (Edward > Thomas > Jacob > Jacob > William >), New York State 1780 to 1818 (Gurdon >), Richland County, Ohio 1800s and after (Harrison m. Mary Jane Miles > Harry m. Malinda Zehner > Ralph m. May Umfleet > Alvy >)
See The Hazen Family in America, by Tracey Hazen, pub. 1915

Umfleet- Amfleet, England before 1823 (William of Amfleet or Umphlett); Isle of Barbados 1623 to c.1640 (William II and William III Umfleet, North Carolina through 1700s (various Umfleets, Umphletts, Amfleets, etc.), Lawrence County, Illinois in the 1800s (William Pleasant Umfleet m. Mary Elizabeth Doss> Phoebe May Umfleet)

Zehner- 1749 and earlier -- Adam Zehner and his mother lived in the Black Forest of Germany and before that, Switzerland, 1754 to 1825 - Adam Zehner m. Maria Mertz - Philadelphia and the Blue Mountains area of Pennsylvania; Mifflin, Ohio after 1824 (Peter Zehner > Isaac Zehner > Malinda Zehner  m. Harry Miles Hazen > Joseph Ralph Hazen > Alvy Miles Hazen)
See  The Zehner-Hoppes Family History

Doss - Olney, Illinois 1850s? (John A. m. Elizabeth Briner Stanfield > had two sons, Steven Walter and Thomas Jefferson, plus daughter Mary Elizabeth Doss m. W. P. Umfleet> Pheobe May Umfleet)

Casler - changed from Kessler: Holland prior to 1725; New York State from before the Revolution, 1900 on Mansfield, Ohio area. (Alonzo Casler descendant John Lynn Casler)

Gibbs - Cinderella Gibbs (1850s -1860s?), wife of Alonzo A. Casler and her brother Morris Gibbs who served in the Pennsylvania Artillary

Mauerer / Mauery / Mowry - Ashland County, Ohio, name changed from Mauerer / Mauery to Mowry around 1920 (Curtis Mowry > daughter Sylvia Dell Mowry aka Stella m. John Lynn Casler)

Vanzile - from Holland, then from New York State, in Richland and Ashland Counties, Ohio in early 1800s; Ellen (Eleanor) Vanzile m. Curtis Mowry)

Restoring Family Photos

When dealing with digital files of old photographs, we can do anything that a good darkroom can and probably more. For instance we can make undetectable repairs to scratches, tears, spots, and even krinkles and water damage as well as crop, resize, change the exposure, even colorize (as in the photo above). NOTE: Colorization of photos works about as well as colorization of old black and white movies. It's an aesthetic decision. You either like it or you don't. Ordinarily we use colorization only to draw attention to certain details in a picture or to make a feature easier for visually impaired friends to distinguish since some of them can't discriminate details in black and white photos. The most awesome use of colorization we have ever seen was the little girl's red coat in "Schindler's List". That convinced us that, though colorization is sometimes a desecration, it can be useful for some purposes.

Lifting Details

On the right is one of the completed portraits. By scanning the original at 1200 dpi, then lifting the detail, doubling its size, then transforming it into the type of file needed by the genealogy program, we created a likeness that, if not great quality, at least adds to family knowledge by showing another example of these subjects' appearance.

Rescung pictures darkened by age

By using the Automatic Levels feature of PhotoShop to modify the scan, details are brought out and it appears that the picture might have been taken yesterday.

This repair took only a few seconds once the photo had been digitized. Again, scanning at 1200 dpi assured a smooth result. The final version was reduced from a million colors to 256 grays and 72 dpi, then translated into .jpg format as required for the World Wide Web.
 
 
 

Bringing out unsuspected details

NOTES:

2) Some purists would never consider editing the scans of old photos to "improve" image quality because they think the aging process has its own beauty. I, on the other hand, am much more interested in recovering as nearly as possible the original image through the miracle of computer graphic editing. I want to see what these people looked like as near to lifelike images as I can get. Of course, I would never "improve" the original picture. Its patina and signs of age remain. But I think it's both satisfying and informative to bring out detail that age has obscured in these old images.