52 Ancestors: Favorite Photo
Claudia, Anna, and Margaret (Morin) Caron
This is a tough one, if I’m honest, because as I’ve mentioned before, I love photography. I’m going to cheat a little and include a few other favorites below, but the one above is definitely towards the top of the list for so many reasons. This is, from left to right, my great grandmother Claudia Caron, her sister Anna Caron, and their mother Margaret (Morin) Caron. I’ve always been fascinated by my great grandmother in part because I see parts of my face and appearance in her, such as her eyebrows and chin and hairline. Genetics are fun!
Claudia lived an interesting life. She was born in Calumet, Michigan in 1876 to Margaret Morin and Charles Caron. She was one of their younger children, but they had many. In the 1900 census, it says Margaret had 12 children and 8 were living. (1) They were a prolific family, and they seemed to be fairly well-to-do. Charles was a blacksmith. When Claudia was 24, in 1900, she married John Lysaght.(2) For a long time, that was the only thing I could find for her until she married my great grandfather Joseph Asselin, but I couldn’t find what happened to her first husband. Finally, last year, I found a newspaper article from Montana where her husband died in jail there from alcoholism. He had been a bartender there, and while there’s no indication of why he went to Montana, Claudia meanwhile was living in Moline, Illinois. (3) It seems it wasn’t a happy marriage based on these details.
Claudia and her first husband didn’t have any children. In August, 1911, she married Joseph Asselin back in her hometown of Calumet. (4) Joseph had been married twice before and both wives had died. He had three children with each of his first two wives and then four with Claudia. In May 1912, they welcomed their first son, my grandfather, Leonard. (5) It seems Claudia cared for her stepchildren, as in 1933, she traveled to France on the dime of the U.S. government as part of a widows and mothers program that took women to Europe to visit the graves of fallen soldiers from World War I. She took part in this program for her stepson Emile Asselin, who died in France in 1918. She was under no obligation to take the trip, which implies she did want to honor him, and the records around this trip are fascinating and full of rich details. (6)
Likely because Claudia came from a more well-to-do family than most other branches of my tree, and then married a successful merchant in my great grandfather, I have more photos of her than any other relative of that generation.
There are a few reasons why the photo of Claudia above is one of my favorites. The first is because, as a girl who grew up obsessed with Anne of Green Gables, I admire a good puffed sleeve, and all three women in this photo have gorgeous dresses with—in the case of Margaret especially—extravagant puffed sleeves. The sleeves also point to timing for the photo, which was likely in the mid-1890s when this style was at its peak. (7) This would make Claudia around 20 in the photo, her younger sister Anna was probably around 16, and their mother Margaret was probably in her mid-50s. I have a few photos of Claudia that were or might have been taken earlier than this, but most of them are from after. I also really like the personality in the photo for each woman. Finally, it’s interesting as a photo because there were other children in their family, including other daughters, so it’s not clear to me why it was just the three of them in this one. I have not been able to identify a reason for this photo.
Below you can flip through some of my other favorites of Claudia throughout her life. It seems like she was always a fashionable dresser and very engaged with her family.
(1) Claudia Caron, entry in household of Charles Caron, lines 4–8, dwelling 209, family 217, sheet 14-A, enumeration district 0170, Calumet Township, Houghton County, Michigan, Twelfth Census of the United States, 1900; database with images, Ancestry (https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/7602/images/4120226_00097 : accessed 29 January 2026); citing National Archives and Records Administration, microfilm publication T623, roll 714.
(2) Marriage register entry for Lysaght and Caron, record no. 289, p. 181, Houghton County, Michigan; database with images, Ancestry (https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/9093/images/41326_342362-00217 : accessed 29 January 2026), “Michigan, U.S., Marriage Records, 1867–1952” > Registers, 1887–1925 > 1896–1900 > 1900 Delta–Mackinac > image 218 of 637; citing Michigan Department of Community Health, Division for Vital Records and Health Statistics.
(3) “Death of J. Lysaght Is Especially Sad,” p. 10, col. 5, The Anaconda Standard (Anaconda, Montana), Monday, 9 July 1906; digital image, Newspapers.com (https://www.newspapers.com/image/354342321 : accessed 29 January 2026).
(4) Marriage register entry for Asselin and Lysaght/Caron, record no. 419, pp. 759–760, Registers, 1887–1925, 1911–1915, 1911 Gogebic–Macomb, Houghton County, Michigan; database with images, Ancestry (https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/9093/images/41326_342373-00116 : accessed 29 January 2026), “Michigan, U.S., Marriage Records, 1867–1952” > Registers, 1887–1925 > 1911–1915 > 1911 Gogebic–Macomb > image 117 of 633; citing records of the Michigan Department of Community Health, Division for Vital Records and Health Statistics.
(5) Marriage certificate for Leonard Asselin and Eileen O’Rourke, certificate no. 451535, 1935, Detroit, Wayne County, Michigan; database with images, Ancestry (https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/9093/images/41326_341706-01760 : accessed 29 January 2026), “Michigan, U.S., Marriage Records, 1867–1952” > Certificates, 1926–1946 > Wayne > Wayne, Part 18 (Miscellaneous Years) > image 3344 of 424842; citing original records of the Michigan Department of Community Health, Division for Vital Records and Health Statistics.
(6) Asselin, Emile J, “Correspondence, Reports, Telegrams, Applications, and Other Papers Relating to Burials of Service Personnel,” 1915-1939, Record Group 92 (Records of the Office of the Quartermaster General); digital images, National Archives and Records Administration (https://catalog.archives.gov/id/167973305 : accessed 29 January 2026).
(7)“Sleeve Shifts of the 1890s,” Historical Sewing (https://historicalsewing.com/sleeve-shifts-of-the-1890s : accessed 29 January 2026).
