At last we meet....

Around fifteen years ago or so my mom thought it would be wonderful if I would start tracing my husband's family genealogy. She herself had been working on my Dad's side of the family, as our somewhat historically significant family had some gaps to fill in along the way to make the lineage complete.

It used to be really hard to fill in gaps. It involved looking through films of censuses, hoping that a family was where you thought they were at a given year. The writing was often blurry, and the rolling of the film in the semi dark was hard on both the eyes used to see and the shoulder used to crank the film.

I asked my mother-in-law about my husband's father's family. My mil is LDS, but apparently not in the least motivated to get involved in researching her husband's family herself. She did hand over what she had, which was the fact that my husband's paternal great grandfather had been born in Clay Co, IL. in 1859, and was named James F.

No one knew what the "F" stood for.

Happily for me, that meant that he was therefore going to show up in the 1860 census. Just one family with our last name was listed in Clay Co. that year, and indeed, thay had a one year old son name James F.

James had several siblings listed, and his father was named "James Joseph ------" (our last name). I quickly reduced his name to JJ, to make it simple. JJ was noted as being born in So. Carolina, in 1818. I was off and running on the family tree now, and before the research weekend was over I had the family pretty well figured out, all the way back to 1630. The family was in Maryland by the 1660's, leaving England as King's Men, racing to avoid the perils of Oliver Cromwell's upheaval.

Our son Jeffrey was the twelfth generation of the family name in America.

JJ was the seventh generation.

JJ lived in Clay county for almost eighty years. He lost both his parents by the time he was ten, and was raised by his mother's brothers. He had three wives, burying two by the time he was fifty five. There were thirteen children altogether, nine of which survived childhood.

Knowing that photography took off during the Civil War, and that photographers roamed the country in the 1880 taking pictures of just about everyone, I was positive that there had to be a picture of JJ out there somewhere. Somebody had to have some picture...but the family members that I knew about really didn't even know about JJ at all, much less have a picture of him.

Years passed, and the Internet miraculously appeared on the scene. Soon I was on data bases and website dedicated to genealogy. One day I saw a posting of James F. brother's name, Ulyssus S. Grant ----- (remember Clay Co. was just down the road from General US Grant's home, and baby USG was born smack dab in the middle of the Civil War).

USG--- great granddaughter was thrilled to learn about JJ. All news to her.

A few years went by. Then up popped an entry on Ancestry.com about JJ. I emailed Paul----, who had posted the message. JJ's great great grandson Paul replied, on Bernie's 53 birthday no less! Paul ---- replied that he was the grandson of JJ's youngest son John, who had been born in 1876.

Paul also shared that he had inheritied his grandfather's documents, including JJ's Bible. JJ received the Bible in 1832, and faithfully recorded the family history as it happened within its pages.

I was delighted. Paul lives in Santa Cruz, which was just over the hill from where we once lived seven years ago. Ships that pass in the night.

I replied to Paul that I was interested in all that he had to share. I told him how excited I was to learn about the family Bible, and how amazing it was to get his message on Bernie's birthday.

And that I had long hoped that someone out there had a picture of JJ.

That evening the following subject line appeared in my email:

HAPPY 53RD BIRTHDAY FROM OUR GREAT GRANDFATHER...

And below in the body of the email, was the picture above. At last, a picture of James Joseph -----, arriving for us to see, 99 1/2 years after his death.

Update: JJ was approximately 50 something at the time of the photo, as it is a tintype, which was came into general use during the Civil War. Paul commented he and his male family members all bore a striking resemblance to JJ.
Bernie's brother is a dead ringer for JJ on the left side.

Paul said he has additional photographs of other family members of that era.
He has barely begun to go through all that he has inherited.

I can't imagine how he has not!