Updated: This original photo has gone home to family!
It can be challenging to differentiate between Victorian era boys and girls. The Victorians were not adamant about gender distinction in children's clothing. The clothes would often be identical. There’s of course the theory that boys often wore the hair parting on one side, while girls' hair was mostly parted in the middle. But this babe wore no parting at all.
Luckily, this babe came fully identified, so we know he was a boy:
Georg Oetling, 2 years + 4 months old. August 1896. So he must have been born in April/May of 1894.
The photo studio stamp is from Hamburg city centre in Germany, my hometown!
With all those valuable details I was able to find him in the records. And he sure left quite the paper trail!
Georg Oscar Bernhard Oetling was born on May 1, 1894 in Hamburg. His parents were Julius Friedrich Jakob Oetling and Charlotte Elisabeth Ellen née Booth. The family lived in Winterhude in Hamburg. The head of the family was listed as a businessman on Georg’s birth record. Over the next couple of years, Georg’s siblings were born:
Helene Olga Mariquita Oetling (1895-1984)
Oskar Julius Helmuth Oetling (1897-1961)
Ellen Gladys Oetling (1900-1902)
Fanny Carlota Margarethe Oetling (1907-1996)
And now the story gets really interesting. I find Georg on several passenger lists between 1927 and 1934, sailing between Hamburg and the USA and Mexico. In 1927 he was single, by 1930 married.
As I was looking for any record of his marriage in Hamburg, I came across one from Mexico instead! Georg – or Jorge Oscár Bernardo Oetling as he was known in Mexico - married Maria Eulalia Elisa Carmen Collignon Robles Gil on October 29, 1927 in Guadalajara!
Georg and Carmen had four sons:
Georg Julius Oetling (1928-2021)
Julius Carl Bernard Oetling (1929-1932)
Hans Bernhard Oetling (1935-?)
Carl Oscar Alexander Oetling (1938-?)
And now the cherry on top – a public family tree on Ancestry shows Georg as a young man!
Source: Ancestry public tree
Oh how I love those age comparisons. You can recognise his smile in his toddler photo. And the haircut didn’t change much either. So handsome! According to the passenger list from 1930 he was 5 feet 6 inches tall (1,70m) tall, had blond hair and blue eyes.
Georg was widowed in 1971. He passed away in February 1982 in Guadalajara.
The family tree on Ancestry is very well researched and goes back many generations. There are photos of two of Georg’s siblings, of his parents, grandparents and even great-grandparents! I will try to make contact with the family and return the photo.
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