Cousin Connections: Tracking Down Family Portraits

According tho the Haase papers, in 1909 Pauline Schlund Haase, a granddaughter of Fidel and Josepha Schlund, purchased two life size oil paintings of Fidel and Josepha. They were purchased from members of the Marckhart family in Immenstadt and Pauline brought them to the United States. As of the writing of the papers, 1959, the portraits were owned by Elsa Haase Sweet.

The papers also include crude photocopies of pictures of the portraits. I was curious if I could find better quality pictures of the oil paintings. I decided to look on Ancestry.com and see if I could find any descendants of Pauline Schlund Haase.

I got into touch with a gentleman who ended up being a cousin! He shared better pictures of the portraits with me. I then shared the information he had given me about who the current owner of the portraits might be with another cousin. We have just started working together and she has shared so much information with me. I am so glad we connected! She was able to find out who has the portraits. In just one day!

So now we know who currently owns the portraits and have better pictures of them. I never realized before how much connecting with cousins really pays off in genealogy. Now that I am making these connections I am learning more than I have in a long time. I also am able to share what I know about the Schlunds with others which really makes me happy!

I have permission to share the portraits so I am posting them here. I also am posting a retouched version, done by a photographer friend from Facebook. I hope anyone with connections to the Schlund family enjoys these pictures.

Retouched version of the painting of Fidel Schlund

Retouched version of the painting of Josepha Schlund