A wonderful day

John Winn

Lt. Colonel
Joined
Mar 13, 2014
Location
State of Jefferson
Long story short, I was able to make contact with a distant cousin who I discovered via Ancestry and it turns out that his mother had kept a family bible with pictures and a photo album. In the bible, there are photos of one set of great grandparents (one being one of my Confederate ancestors; photo is post-war though) and another of great great grandparents. It's just incredible for me as nobody in my family kept anything. My contact is giving me the photo album (he's mailing it today) and says that there's labeled photos of his mother's folk but also a lot of unlabeled ones he suspects might be of my grandparent's generation. I have no idea what anybody looked like but maybe there'll be some clue that allows me to identify somebody; really hope to see one of my mother's mother and father.

My contact's grandmother was the sister of my grandmother. He's now in his 80s.

I'm really floored to have this just fall out of the sky like this. Another internet wonder story. I'll not be able to sleep until I get that photo album ! Just had to tell somebody.
 
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That is fantastic @John Winn and the family photo album couldn't be in better hands! :D

Let us know if we can help with deciphering handwriting or comparing images. You know I love that stuff and am happy to help.

Thanks for the offer. I can hardly wait to see what's in that album. Might not be anything but there's a very high probability of some direct family images (as there are in the bible) as the woman whose album it was was the niece of my grandmother and a number of her side of the family lived in Macon, Ga. at the same time my mother's parents did (several are buried in the same cemetery).

One of the most exciting days in my life in recent memory.
 
Great News and looking forward to see the photos.

Well, if you insist. These are my gg grandparents. Rosina's brother and his son are the two Yankee relatives I discovered recently (Ohio regiments). Rosina's daughter married a Confederate veteran. Amos was a steamship pilot in Apalachicola, Florida and a ship's captain on the Ohio and Mississippi rivers and out of New Orleans. Just last week I discovered their death dates and where they are buried.

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Update:

Today I got the album and there were, indeed, photos of my grandparents and great grandparents. It's just more than I can digest almost. This album belonged to the sister of my grandmother and has photos going back to the 1880s. The album itself is in very bad condition but the pages - thick cardboard - are intact as are the photos.

It definitely proves the family had photos taken but my side just didn't seem to bother to keep any. It's really something to be holding a book that's 130 years old owned by the sister of my grandmother and now sitting on my kitchen table in Oregon. What's the chance of that ? (OK, for you statisticians, I know it's 1 as it actually happened so don't get all technical on me - the chances were extremely low before it actually happened).

OK, back to your regular programming. My year is made.
 
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