CSI specialists unravel Cramsie mystery

In the course of my research into the Cramsie family history, I was able to retrieve a copy of Frank Cramsie's WWI Draft Registration Card. These documents provide some very useful information, including age, physical description, place of residence, nearest living relative, place of employment and occupation. The cards were also signed by the registrant, which is an interesting personal connection to the individual. When I read through Frank's registration card, I could decipher most of the facts. But though I could see that he was employed by the Yuba Manufacturing Company in Marysville, California, I could not for the life of me make any sense out of his stated occupation. The image was poor and the handwriting was a little unusual. Fortunately, I happened to send the image to Tom Rickels, a son of Bill Cramsie's sister Ruth. Tom is a crime scene investigator with the Kern County, California Sheriff's Office and analysis of physical evidence is their business.

Tom replied the next day with the following:

"I believe we've solved the mystery of his job description. After a bit of handwriting analysis, digital imaging, and asking my friend Mark Riehle to take a look, we're very comfortable that the mystery word is: WAREHOUSEMAN. The first letter is a "W". The ascender on the letter (the last one when writing, or, on the right) is quite stubby; almost unseen. It appears that the word "warehouseman" was written with two breaks in it: ware-house-man. Mark really solved it, though. He's somewhat colorblind as sees gray tones with a vengeance. He had it figured out in less than a minute. I had to play with it on the computer until I could see what he was seeing. We all confirmed our findings with each other and are confident the word is "warehouseman". Mark is our "go-to" guy when we have difficult fingerprints to analyze or photographs that are muddy. I guess colorblindness isn't such a negative after all! I also did a quick search on Yuba Manufacturing Company. It appears that it specialized in making dredges for mining purposes."

From this document, and the sleuthing of Tom and his colleagues, we now know where, and in what sort of job, Frank Cramsie worked prior to his employment with the J.R. Garrett company in Marysville. The entire story of Bill Cramsie and his family has come to light in ways virtually identical to this. Tiny scraps of information have provided basic facts which, when set in context, create an interesting family and personal history.