Ancestry Magazine

Historically, family businesses have been the backbone of the American community. Even today, it’s estimated that 80 to 90 percent of all business enterprises in North America are family-owned operations. Chances are go od that, even if your ancestors didn’t own their own business, they were linked in some way to a family-run operation.

Not every family business developed into a household name like Max Factor or Oscar Mayer. But every family business tells a story—one that goes deeper than the just the name of the person who owned it.

The first place to start a search for a family-owned business is the attic. All sorts of family papers may identify a business, including catalogs, calendars, and advertisements. Family photographs may yield clues—a close look at the background of a photo may reveal a business name on a storefront or on a company truck.

There are clues to be found in the census. Occupations were first listed in 1850. Early listings were fairly general—farming, saw mill, and the like. As the census progressed, so did the detail of the occupation. Starting in the 1900 census, it is not unusual to see occupations such as “fruit dealer (retail),” “tailor,” or “dentist.”

Two of the pre-1850 censuses give a general indication of occupation, though not with a great amount of detail: the 1840 census asked for the number of people in the household engaged in mining, agriculture, commerce, manufacture, navigation, and “learned professional engineers;” the 1820 census recorded the number of people in a household engaged in agriculture, commerce, or manufacturing. It is not possible to tell solely from these schedules which member of the household was in these occupations or, for example, the type of manufacturing in which a person was engaged.

What of the companies that went out of business? Nearly 70 percent of family businesses do not make it to the second generation, and less than 15 percent survive to a third generation. Business owners may have retained their records, or they may have subsequently tossed out their records when they closed up their shop for good.

When records can’t be found, turning to institutions and organizations can help. Prior to going out of business, some companies placed at least a portion of their records with state historical societies, either as a separate record group or as part of a collection of family papers of the founder of the company.

The National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections (NUCMC), a collaborative cataloging program operated by the Library of Congress, contains listi ngs of manuscript collections across the United States. It can be an invaluable resource for finding business records, especially ones that end up in off-the-beaten-path repositories.

As an example, using NUCMC, a researcher can find that records of Fletcher, Pack and Company of Alpena, Michigan, from 1868 to approximately 1923 are at the Bentley Historical Library at the University of Michigan. Included in the more than four linear feet and seventeen volumes of records are ledgers, day books, tax records, and photographs—treasures for anyone researching the families involved in this business.

Previous Research
The study of business histories is growing in academic circles as more emphasis continues to be placed on social history—businesses in an area, it turns out, can yield a tremendous amount of information about a community. The good news for family historians, then, is that the odds are improving that a business they’re researching will already have a written history. The bad news is that most business histories are published in small quantities and finding one can take a bit of effort.

The best place to start a search for a written history of a business is at the public library of the town in which the company was located. Other places to search include local and state historical societies, state libraries, and college and university libraries within the state.

Industry directories can also provide answers, although they’re typically limited to a geographic area or a specific time period. Black Book Publishers in the United States: A Historical Dictionary of the Presses, 1817–1990, for example, gives an incredible amount of detail about the founding and history of individual presses, information regarding the type of publishing, and biographical information about some of the founders.

Industry histories, a lthough they may not provide extensive information about a specific ancestor, can offer background and context, like Over the Barrel: The Brewing History and Beer Culture of Cincinnati. While the book does not give details on every brewery ever operated in Cincinnati, it offers industry-specific information and details about the forces that changed the industry.

Another place to look for detailed information is in 1820, 1850, 1860, 1870, and 1880 census schedules for industries and manufacturers. These schedules were completed at the same time as the population schedules and include specific information about businesses that produced materials or finished products.

Combining directory information and census details can give a researcher the following information:

Hermann Ahlers was a shirt maker on Euclid Avenue in Cleveland, Ohio. His ad in the 1881 Cleveland city direct-ory urged men to see why the “Euclid shirt” was the best. His listing on the 1880 census schedule of manufacturers states that there was $5,500 capital invested in the business. There were thirteen employees at his shop at one time during that year, of which two were males over the age of sixteen, and eleven were females over the age of fifteen. An ordinary work day was eight hours; s killed workers earned an average of $3.50 a day, and unskilled workers earned $1.00 a day. The value of material was $4,000 and the value of the product was $12,500.

Beyond the specifics of Ahlers’s business, however, is the context in which these records place Ahlers’s business. Compared with other shirt makers in Cleveland at the time, Ahlers’s operation proves to be fairly typical. Other shirt makers employed mostly females over the age of fifteen and had workdays of eight to ten hours. But Ahlers was atypical in one aspect—pay. His skilled workers earned $3.50 a day, while skilled workers with other shirt makers earned only $1.00 to $2.50 a day. Unskilled workers with other Cleveland shirt makers earned only fifty to ninety cents per day.

Other sources that may be valuable to include in a search for a family business are local newspapers, which can provide advertisements, notices, and news articles about a business. Governments at the local or state level may also provide some unique answers. A business may have registered with or obtained a license from a local or state government. Companies that incorporated would have filed papers with the secretary of state, or may have appeared in annual reports of various state and federal agencies. As an example, the Mining Commission of Ohio’s 1871 annual report gives the conditions of specific mines across the state as well as statements of some of the owners and employees.

For the uninitiated, a pierogi is a crescent-moon-shaped pasta pocket of Eastern European-origin (Polish, Russian, Slovak, Ukranian) filled with any variety of goodies like cheese, potato, and sauerkraut. Traditionally, they’re served with sautéed onions and maybe a little sour cream on top. And, as anyone who has ever tasted one will attest, they’re glorious.

But Mannarino wasn’t able to find pierogies that compared to her mother’s or her grandmother’s. So she started to make h er own, based on their recipes.

She started by making them for her family, then gave them out to neighbors and friends. Next thing she knew, people were requesting pierogies, and she started taking orders—a business was born.

This June will mark Mannarino’s fifteenth year in the pierogi business as owner of Pierogies Plus in McKee’s Rocks, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Pittsburgh—a hotbed of U.S. pierogi activity where even the city’s major league baseball team, the Pirates, has stuffed pierogi mascots. And while Mannarino has added new pierogi fillings at the request of some of her customers, she still stands by the traditional recipe that she says “my mom passed down to me and her mom to her.”

Whether or not this heritage-based family business will remain in Mannarino’s family is yet to be seen. “I have only one son and he did help when he was a teenager,” says Mannarino, “but he’s moved on to other fields.” Still, for the time being, Mannarino maintains close family relations—both her mother and her sister, along with a team of other pierogi professionals, work alongside her every day making pierogies.

City and county directories are again exc ellent places to start when trying to identify the family. Many directories listings include the owners of a business. Ads in the directories and in newspapers are also good resources for identifying the owners.

Local historical societies can often assist in identifying a business’s owners. In addition, these same societies may even have photographs of storefronts, the owners, and the employees. The vertical files at the local public library may include ephemera such as catalogs or newspaper clippings about local businesses and business owners.

As with any other type of research, the Internet is not to be overlooked. It is not unusual to find at least a little bit about the founder on an existing company’s website. You can get the skinny on Ray Croc at the McDonalds website, squeeze out a little information on Howard John Heinz at the Heinz website <www.heinz.com>, or chew on the history of gum maven William Wrigley, Jr.. Even comparatively small companies will offer their founder’s background—the website for the Anthony-Thomas Candy Company features a company history, complete with information about founder Anthony Zanetos which gives more proof to the theory that combining chocolate and family history is a sweet proposition, indeed.