I have always written to the readers of this column how important it is to research all collateral lines and not just your direct ancestors.

As a Hatt researcher I answered a query on GenForum, asking if anyone knew anything about Oliver Perry Hatt. I answered that query and probably told the person asking the question more than they cared to know. I received a thank you and later received an e-mail from the lady who had inquired about Oliver.

She wrote she had purchased this package from E-Bay and she wanted to send it to a Hatt family researcher. I inherited a box full of letters written by Oliver Perry Hatt and Nettie Wright, who later became his wife. These letters were written in the 1880s and also included in the box was the above picture.

The picture looks like a reunion of sorts and since Oliver's family lived in Hillsboro, Fountain County, Indiana, I sent a copy of this picture to the genealogical society. I also sent a copy of the back of the picture which has many of the people identified.

What you see above is the picture as cropped from its backing, but there was damage to the cardboard that the picture was attached to and therefore some of the names are missing.

A member of the genealogical society wrote that they did not recognize any of the names. I decided to see if I could locate them on census records beginning in 1900 and 1910. Perhaps I could learn more about this group and the occasion for the gathering.

Having searched both the 1900 and the 1910 Fountain County census records, I am convinced that the picture was a gathering of families that lived there. Many of the names have been located in both census records, but some are still missing.

There were two people listed as Brother and Sister Pastil, and I am assuming that this could have been the pastor of a local church and his wife, but I have not found them on the census records for the 1900 or 1910 era.

They could have been visiting the church, if this was a church gathering. Since I did not find a member of the Hatt family listed on the picture I am not sure they were members of this group. However, the picture was included in the package of Hatt letters and pictures. Based on that fact I think there is a connection between the Hatt family and this group.

The man who sold the package lived in New York and I wondered how the pictures and letters of a family in Fountain County, Indiana got to New York. In Oliver Hatt's 1921 obituary it stated that his daughter Mrs. Clifford Parker lived in Chicago and his other two children lived in Indiana.

My search began with Oveta Hatt who was the youngest child of Perry and Nettie Hatt, and because she moved to Chicago by 1921. When I found her Social Security Death Index record it listed her last residence as being in Syracuse, Onondaga County, N.Y.

She had died there March 13, 1993, at the age of 97. The only known child born to her was Margaret Parker who was born in 1927.

I have ordered the obituary of Clifford D. Parker, husband of Oveta, who died in 1964. His obituary was listed in a Montgomery County, Indiana newspaper and I will be interested to see where he died, since there was no address listed with his Social Security Death Index record.

Once again I have written to a Fountain County, Indiana Genealogical Society to see if they would like to have a copy of the group picture. There is one site that has a file of unidentified pictures which would be the perfect place for this picture.

I have not decided what to do with all the letters, but because they had been saved all these years by Nettie and then by her daughter Oveta, I would not want to keep them in a file for no one to share. We have lots of decisions to make when we are the family historian and there are some facts that we cannot share.