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. 

Family of Valentine Ryan and Bridget Tobin of County Kilkenny, Ireland, and Grant County, Arkansas: New Information

Watercolor painting of the ship James Nesmith by artist Duncan McFarlane (1818-1865), online at the invaluable website, from an auction held by Bourgeault-Horan Antiquarians in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, in August 2008

Or, Subtitled: Things Are Seldom Quite as Simple as One Would Like in Genealogical Research, Are They?

Throwback Thursday they call it, right? This posting is a throwback to a series of posts I did in April 2018, which began with this posting entitled “In Memory of Valentine Ryan, Born in Co. Kilkenny, Ireland, Feb. 23, 1810, Died Feb. 22, 1881. Erected by his son Patrick Ryan.” The series that begins with the linked posting above (you can follow the whole series by clicking on the next posting at the bottom of the page) tracks the roots of Valentine Ryan (1811-1881) and wife Bridget Tobin (1818-1873) of southern County Kilkenny, Ireland. As the series explains, Valentine was the son of John Ryan and Margaret Oates of Templeorum Catholic parish — the family lived in Belline and Rogerstown townland in Fiddown civil parish, at a place in that townland called Logriach or Loughreagh, which is part of Piltown.[1] Margaret,the daughter of John Oates and Eleanor Thompson, was from nearby Tybroughney/Tibberaghny, also part of Piltown. Tybroughney/Tibberaghny is the townland bordering Belline and Rogerstown to the east.

“In Memory of Valentine Ryan, Born in Co. Kilkenny, Ireland, Feb. 23, 1810, Died Feb. 22, 1881. Erected by his son Patrick Ryan”: Irish Roots of Ryan Family, Grant County, Arkansas (2)

1856_G_W_Cotton
County Kilkenny, Ireland, G.W. Cotton Map, 1856

In my first posting in this series, I began telling you how, after years of searching, I eventually located the specific place in County Kilkenny, Ireland, from which my Ryan ancestors emigrated to America in 1852-3. My family had long known that Valentine  Ryan and his wife Bridget, my great-great-grandparents, brought their family from County Kilkenny to the U.S. — but precisely where they had lived in County Kilkenny, we had forgotten. Continue reading ““In Memory of Valentine Ryan, Born in Co. Kilkenny, Ireland, Feb. 23, 1810, Died Feb. 22, 1881. Erected by his son Patrick Ryan”: Irish Roots of Ryan Family, Grant County, Arkansas (2)”

“In Memory of Valentine Ryan, Born in Co. Kilkenny, Ireland, Feb. 23, 1810, Died Feb. 22, 1881. Erected by his son Patrick Ryan”: Irish Roots of Ryan Family, Grant County, Arkansas (1)

Valentine Ryan Tombstone
Valentine Ryan Tombstone, Orion Cemetery, Grant County, Arkansas

In two previous postings in my series about Patrick Ryan (here and here), I’ve shared a few pieces of information about Pat’s Irish roots. As I told you in those postings (the first link has a copy of his baptismal record), his parents were Valentine Ryan (1810-1881) and Bridget Tobin (1818-1873), who married 21 September 1836 in Kilmacow Catholic parish, County Kilkenny, Ireland. Following their marriage and up to their emigration to America in 1852-1854, Val and Biddy Ryan lived in Buckstown, a sort of “suburb” of the town of Mullinavat in southern County Kilkenny (and I’ll explain more about that later). Continue reading ““In Memory of Valentine Ryan, Born in Co. Kilkenny, Ireland, Feb. 23, 1810, Died Feb. 22, 1881. Erected by his son Patrick Ryan”: Irish Roots of Ryan Family, Grant County, Arkansas (1)”

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) (5)

Ryan, Patrick Union Pension File, Elizabeth Hill Affidavit
Affidavit of Elizabeth Hill, Civil War Pension Files of Patrick Ryan and Widow Delilah Rinehart Ryan (Invalid’s Pension, South Division, #1107789, Widow’s Pension #586121)

I’d like to begin winding down my series of postings about the Civil War pension files of Patrick Ryan and his wife Delilah Rinehart Ryan of Grant County, Arkansas, by tying up some loose ends I’ve left dangling in my four previous postings about these genealogically rich documents. As I do so, I’m fully aware that most of you don’t share my intense interest in the people mentioned in these files. How could you, when they aren’t your relatives and the connections of your kin? Continue reading “Prob. Died Young, Or How Pat Ryan Lost His Eye (As a Union Soldier) (5)”