Notes on Identifying Old Family Photos as a Genealogical Project: A “Gathering” of Batchelor Family Photos (3)

Eva Mae Murdock Triplett and son Charles Lee Triplett, 1929, probably taken at Logue Studio, Pine Bluff, Arkansas

And, Subtitled: “Let us now praise famous women, and our mothers that begat us”

In a few days, I’ll resume my project of following family lines down from the earliest proven ancestor in my Brooks family, Mary Brooks, who died testate in Frederick County, Virginia, in 1787, and whose maiden surname I don’t know, as I also don’t know the given name of her Brooks husband. In the series on which I’m now working, I’m following the children of Mary’s son Thomas Brooks (abt. 1747 – 1805), who died testate in Wythe County, Virginia, and who is my ancestor. I’ve just completed a series on Thomas’s oldest son James Brooks and wife Nancy Isbell, which began with this posting. My next series will track the line of Thomas Brooks’s daughter Margaret (1772 – 1857), who married Joseph Day, son of Joseph Day and Catherine Yarnall, about 1792.

Notes on Identifying Old Family Photos as a Genealogical Project: A “Gathering” of Batchelor Family Photos

Or, Subtitled: Mystery Photos of Two WWI Soldiers

I’m going to take a short break from my current project of chronicling family lines descending from Thomas Brooks (abt. 1745 – 1805) and wife Margaret (probably Beaumont/Beamon) of Frederick and Wythe Counties, Virginia, to talk about another project on which I’ve recently been working. It’s a genealogical project that involves sorting through old family photos, unidentified ones, and trying to use clues provided on those photos to identify the unknown persons in the photos. 

Prob. Died Young, Or How Pat Ryan Lost His Eye (As a Union Soldier) (9)

Mendelsohn The Lost

This will be my final posting in this series about Patrick Ryan (1846-1893) and his Civil War pension file. If you’re just discovering this blog, you may want to read the whole series of which this is the final piece. What I want to do now is provide some footnotes to  previous postings in the series. Continue reading “Prob. Died Young, Or How Pat Ryan Lost His Eye (As a Union Soldier) (9)”

Prob. Died Young, Or How Pat Ryan Lost His Eye (As a Union Soldier) (8)

Valentine Ryan Heirs, Division of Property, March 1895 (1)

Valentine Ryan Heirs, Division of Property, March 1895 (2(

I’m floundering a bit as I try to draw to a close this series of postings about Pat and Delilah Rinehart Ryan and their pension applications for Pat’s Civil War service and injuries. The problem is that the deeper I reach into the treasure trove of information this file contains, the more connections I’m spotting that I had never seen before. I’m discovering some of those as I share information with you here and try to document aspects of Pat Ryan’s story I had not previously sought to document. Continue reading “Prob. Died Young, Or How Pat Ryan Lost His Eye (As a Union Soldier) (8)”

Prob. Died Young, Or How Pat Ryan Lost His Eye (As a Union Soldier) (7)

Ryan, Patrick, Invalid Declaration, Union Pension File, 20 April 1892
Patrick Ryan, Declaration for Invalid’s Pension, Civil War Pension Files of Patrick Ryan and Widow Delilah Rinehart Ryan (Invalid’s Pension, South Division, #1107789, Widow’s Pension #586121)

More tying up loose ends from the Civil War pension files of my grandmother’s uncle Patrick Ryan and his wife Delilah Rinehart (if you’re just now seeing this series of posting, this is #7 in the series; you may want to click and read the preceding postings for background): Continue reading “Prob. Died Young, Or How Pat Ryan Lost His Eye (As a Union Soldier) (7)”

Prob. Died Young, Or How Pat Ryan Lost His Eye (As a Union Soldier) (6)

Lawrence C. Byrd, Death Record, Union Service Packet
Lawrence Cherry Byrd, Civil War Service Record, NARA, M399, Compiled Service Records of Volunteer Union Soldiers Who Served in Organizations from the State of Arkansas, Personal Papers; RG 94, Carded Records Showing Military Service of Soldiers Who Fought in Volunteer Organizations During the American Civil War, compiled 1890 – 1912, documenting the period 1861 – 1866.

As I ended my last posting about the Civil War pension claims filed by Patrick Ryan and his widow Delilah Rinehart Ryan in Grant County, Arkansas, I mentioned that one of the threads tying together the network of families represented in these combined pension files is that men from several of these families were Union soldiers during the war —in a state that seceded from the Union, from families living in the central and southern part of Arkansas where Confederate sentiment was stronger than it was in the northern half of the state. As we’ve seen, Pat Ryan’s first wife Rosanna Hill Spann was the widow of John H. Spann, who served in the 3rd Arkansas Cavalry along with Pat Ryan, as did John Spann’s brother James Jasper Spann, who enlisted in Little Rock in Co. K of this Union unit on the same day that Pat Ryan did, 8 November 1863. Continue reading “Prob. Died Young, Or How Pat Ryan Lost His Eye (As a Union Soldier) (6)”

Prob. Died Young, Or How Pat Ryan Lost His Eye (As a Union Soldier) (3)

Ryan, Patrick Union Pension File (3)
Patrick Ryan, Disability Affidavit, 19 Nov. 1892 (invalid’s pension, South Division, #1107789).

And now to that missing eye: though I have not spelled this out, it has probably become obvious to you if you’ve read the first two installments in this series that it is, in part, an extended essay about the importance of family stories in genealogical research. It’s a foray into understanding how family stories should be handled. Continue reading “Prob. Died Young, Or How Pat Ryan Lost His Eye (As a Union Soldier) (3)”