Learning More about My Cousin Billie

I've written previously about the photo bonanza that my sister sent to me after her niece had scanned thousands of photographs that were left in the house after our father passed away.  I've made many discoveries and unearthed several childhood memories by going through the photos, and I still have a long way to go to identify all of them.

Now that bonanza has to compete with another one.

About a year and a half ago, I was contacted out of the blue by a woman named Wendi Shaw, who looks for family items for sale in auctions and the like.  She called herself an heirloom hunter, which she does as a hobby.  She goes through the items, puts them in binders, does some research, tries to find family members, and offers to send the items back to them.

She told me she was trying to reach the Brainin family, because she had acquired several of Billie Brainin's items.

I recognized the name right away.  Billie was the daughter of David Brainin, a younger brother of my great-grandmother Sarah Brainin.

Wendi included four photos of the pile of letters.  Three photographs were visible in the collection.

So I shouted out loud, jumped up and down, did the genealogy happy dance, and told her I would love to have the items.

I discovered that she had found me through my blog (this one!), where I had written about Billie a couple of times.

I sent her my address and looked forward to receiving this new family history bonanza.  I even posted the photo of Billie that she had sent me.

And I waited.

After several months, I sent another message, asking if something had happened.  Which it had:  Real life had interfered.

But Wendi was glad I had written again, because she apparently had lost my contact information.  And said she would be sending me the items soon, with one catch:  She wanted me to confirm when I received everything (I already did that) and to let her know when I blogged about this discovery.  And hey, that's what I'm doing now!

It was clear when I started looking at all the items that Wendi had already done some sorting and that they were not in the order in which they had been in the storage unit; she had told me that she had gone through them and put them into plastic sleeves.  So I did not feel compelled to keep them in the order in which I had received them, something that should be considered from an archival perspective.  Since the original order was already lost, I have chosen to put everything in chronological order as much as possible.  So far I have found six items with no dates on them.  Two of those (a music program and a piece of a newspaper) I have determined the dates by searching for text that appears.  That leaves me only four undated items:  two cards and two letters.  Maybe I'll be able to figure out where they fit by context.

The earliest item is a funeral bill from 1924.  The most recent so far is a letter from 1964.

I've only begun to go through the items and actually read them.  Some of what I have found already in this amazing gift:

I learned that Billie, the only name I had ever heard for my cousin, was not actually her given name at birth!  A couple of the letters were addressed to Mildred Brainin, and when I looked for that name in the New York City birth index on Ancestry, I found her.  Totally news to me!  I had not searched for her birth previously because Billie was born late enough that I know New York City won't send me a copy of her birth certificate, even though she died more than 30 years ago.  They're just not a friendly jurisdiction to work with.

Among the letters were four from my cousin Sam Brainin (whom I knew personally) to Billie, his sister, while he was in the Navy.  I have been in contact with Sam's children for several years, so I wrote to one of them to ask if she would like to have the letters.

I'm looking forward to reading all of the letters and learning more about Billie.  I don't know yet how personal any of the information is, so I can't tell how much I might feel comfortable posting.  But it's going to be a fascinating adventure, I'm sure.