[JMS] Re: JAMES MILLEN RESEARCH

[Don Buska]

Wonderful work Joe!  Considering the birth being in the early part of 
last century I wonder if his brother John might not have lived to 
adulthood.  Since his brother Robert is mentioned in the Dunn and 
Bradstreet reports from the late 1940's.  I would expect that Roberts 
immediate family, if he ever married and had children, might still be 
around.  I do believe that Robert had his practice in NYC.  Although 
siblings don't often come up in topics relating to ones business life it 
is understandable that James Millen never made mentioned of them.  
However, Merrill W. Bancroft told me that there didn't appear to be any 
relatives involved when his estate was being sold off.  However, perhaps 
behind the scenes there was and they just hired outside people to do the 
disposal.  James Millen's burial site also seems to support a return to 
a early Millen family location (see below).

Watt makes a good suggestion with the death certificate.  If we could 
also find the obit on Annie Millen we would also know the status of 
family members at that point in time.  When she died I have no idea 
though.  My feeling is if we wanted to ever find more details on his 
early years our best bet might be through his brother Robert as there is 
still a chance that there is a further family tree there.  Hopefully the 
kind of family who saved pictures and historical documents about the 
early family years of the Millens.

I'm open for ideas and suggestions.  How far do we want to go with 
this?  I do know that ever year that goes by we lose more and more 
information and information sources.  A side note, we just had an 
article in our local Kenosha News (Kenosha, Wisconsin) that told about a 
local historian who just obtained some diaries that belonged to a young 
girl who lived in our downtown all her life.  The diaries were from the 
1890's and this girl (lady) lived until 1957.  The really astonishing 
part of this whole story was the diaries were found  in a dumpster next 
to an old building that was being renovated a few months ago.  To the 
construction crew it was just old junk.  To an historian the pages were 
filled with personal accounts of many city events and disasters that 
took place during the six years worth of time these documents covered.  
Well I digress.  Back to the topic at hand.

Oh BTW, it was interesting that your find has him getting a Masters in 
"Electronics" from Stevens.  That large diploma that Merrill W. Bancroft 
has is a "Mechanical Engineering" degree from Stevens.  Like many 
colleges they did not have degrees in Electrical Engineering yet.  As we 
all know Millen was the brains behind the mechanical stuff as well has 
his natural interests in the electronic side of radio.

So I'm all ears on how far we want to take this.  Having a photo on the 
grave stone would be good for the archives.  I'm not sure it would 
provide exact dates, i.e. month and day, of his birth though.  Often you 
don't see such detail on older grave stones.  Just the year.  Albeit 
this could also provide details on all the other Millens buried there!  
Kew Gardens, NY takes us back to his NYC (Long Island) roots.  So my 
guess is this may be where all the family members ended up and could 
provide much needed dates and family relations that could lead us 
forward in our research.

Again great work Joe.  We are truly getting more than we bargained for 
and are indebted to you for all your work so far.

73

Don N9OO



Joe Rubin wrote:
> Don, Finally received the information from Malden.  It was delayed 
> because of a ZIp code error (to me).  Here are the results:
> Obituary, Malden Evening News, Page C4,  Tuesday, June 9, 1987. It 
> states that he died on Monday, so his DOD would be June 8, 1987. He 
> was 82 years old so his birth year would be circa 1905. Passed away in 
> the Hunt Memorial Hospital, North Reading MA.
> Born in Norfolk, VA.  For birth certificate  information:
> Father: John W. Millen
> Mother: Annie Sibbald Millen
> also: Brothers: Dr. Robert Millen and John Millen.
> Received Masters degree in Electronics from Stevens Institute of 
> Technology in 1926.
> Buried in Maple Grove Cemetery, 83-15 Kew Gardens Road, Post Office 
> Box 150086, Kew Gardens, NY 11415-0086. 718-544-3600. I will call the 
> cemetery and find out if the will read the stone or have someone take 
> a picture of it. better yet, take a picture of it for date of birth.
> Please advise if you you like for me to try to obtain a birth 
> certificate.
> There is a bunch of other information about Mr. Millen and I will 
> place the copies in the mail to you today along with the verification 
> data.
> If anyone has any supporting or conflicting information,  Please 
> advise.. 73  Joe  W4CBJ
>
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