This album was given to Tom L. McFarland about 1980 upon the death of his grandmother, Adele Mary Landis, who had kept it for many years before that. The album remained merely a curiosity, since most pictures were unlabeled, and no living person had met the people in its photographs. However, in 2000, the album became a "puzzle" to be solved, and most pictures are now identified : for future viewers, however, note that during 2000-2009 these "identifications" have undergone several revisions, as new data became available, and therefore alternate identifications should at least be considered. In June 2001, Tom L. McFarland recovered a similar album initialed "HPL" (Hannah Potter Landis) from the home of his mother, Dorathy Adele (Landis) McFarland ; also, in 2004, a third album created by Kate Potter (with labeled photos) was scanned. A fourth album was owned by Thomas C. Weir of Tucson, a descendent of Phoebe Davids and Valentine Vermilye. This Weir album was seen and borrowed for a while about 1980 by Jim Downey, and in April of 2010, Angela Weir, widow of Thomas C. Weir, graciously loaned this album to Tom McFarland for scanning. The four albums share several identical pictures, but most pictures are different.

This Cox Album was among the first items scanned for what eventually became a large family history website, but at the time (about the year 2001) there were very few photos to be scanned. Hence, the file_names for these scans became "photo2" and "photo3", and so forth. In retrospect, more distinctive file_names could have been used, such as "cox2", but by the time such a strategy became desirable, many items in the website contained links to files such as "photo3.htm", and this writer was loath to make the many necessary changes, out of fear that these hyperlinks would become unfunctioning.

I will propose that this album was assembled prior to 1900 by Emeline E. Cox and her husband Albert Montfort (Maj. A.M.) Cox, who were then in their 70's, living in Sandwich (DeKalb County) west of Chicago. The album was intended as a gift to their 3^rd daughter Alice, since the album's first picture was of Alice. It contains 48 photos dating from about 1850 to 1904, mostly unlabeled, all reproduced here. 35 photos have been linked with names. Some photos are tin types, which were available from 1852 and common through 1890. Many are "cabinet cards", a style which became available in 1866. The original order of the photos is indicated by page number just above each photo: pairs of adjacent photos suggest relationship. Many of the prints in this album seem to have been made at approximately the same time (1880's), as Emeline was assembling this gift for Alice.

According to Jeanne (Landis) Illian (one of Alice's granddaughters), Alice's children once owned a house in Delevan, Wisconsin, which was unused except for a hired housekeeper. When the house was about to be sold, the housekeeper left, taking nearly all its furnishings except for a cedar trunk containing this album. One of Jeanne's daughters (Sally Bailey of Springfield, Illinois) had acquired a few similar photos, some possibly extracted from this album, and these are displayed separately as Sally's old album; William Walter Landis had handwritten personal information on Sally's pictures in 1951, which has helped identify other photos in this album. In February 2000, Jeanne came with all three of her daughters to Tom M^cFarland in Madison, and all wisdom from this meeting has been added to this digital album. Carroll (Illian) Flood owns a very old scrap book maintained by the Landis families between 1880 and 1925, containing useful marriage and death notices.

Knowledge of the Cox family structure, through obituaries found by Sandwich historians Ken Bastian and Barbara Hoffman, has been very helpful in attaching names to these pictures. Emeline Cox and A. M. Cox had three daughters (Maria, Ella, and Alice), and one son Henry A. Cox ("A" = "Allonzo" ?); two additional children died in infancy. Similar albums may have been given to these other siblings, but as of 2011, none has been located. However, Alice's sister Maria (Mary, Emma) Adams created her own album . The 1860 Illinois census (DeKalb County Pg 245) shows family names and ages, but apparently one son (Henry A. Cox) had yet to be born in 1860. Illinois marriage records and Illinois death records are now available on line.

I also consulted Leslie Bellais of the Wisconsin Historical Society in Madison, who offered her opinion of clothing styles in most pictures. Miss Bellais feels that most clothing dates the images in the interval 1878-1890, but there are some exceptions, noted on each photo. On 1 August 2001, Leslie Bellais also dated the clothing worn for a contemporaneous album created by Alice's mother-in-law, Hannah Potter Landis: most photos were dated 1880's with a few earlier and none later than 1895. Of course, some people, especially men, may have been photographed in clothing bought a few years earlier.