Thursday, July 5, 2012

Thriller Thursday - My First Photo Reunion Success Story!

Curry Williams, Unk, Albert Wms, 1880s
Several weeks ago on June 11 I posted a photo titled Mystery Monday - "Three Gentlemen, Unknown Occupation" which showed three men posing in strange garb.  One of these men was identified as Curry Williams.  I had picked up this photo at an antique show along with some others and most of them had names written on them. Most were from the Talladega County, Alabama area.  Since Curry was such an unusual name, I searched Ancestry.com and was easily able to find him and his immediate family.  I sent emails to two of the people who had family trees on Curry, his siblings and parents inquiring if they were interested in copies of the photos I had.  Both replied enthusiastically, one was Curry's great-granddaughter, the other was a distant cousin.  I was able to send them two photos of Curry (including the one from that post), Curry's brother Albert, his sister Emma, his sister Lillie and what we believe are their parents at a younger age.  They were very excited to receive these photos as they had not seen these before.  Below are the photos I sent:


Curry Williams
J. Albert Williams 1861 - 1923


Lillie Williams (left) 1890s


Emma Wms. Singleton 1890s



prob Abner & Agatha Wms 1860s



11 comments:

  1. YAY! Did the descendants know what their occupations were?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. They only knew what I had been able to find out that Curry was a cotton broker for many years. Mike Brubaker commented on my first post that Albert on the right was holding a kind of auger with his arm resting on the T-handle. This was used for boring holes like pegging timbers together. He also suggested the paint pot might be a glue pot for pasting posters or labels and that the duster he was wearing didn't fit with a house painter. I'm thinking maybe cotton was in the bag. The man in the middle was probably a partner or investor.

      Delete
    2. Ah -- yes, I see the auger now. The man in the middle is holding a ledger, it seems, so apparently he was more white-collar, maybe bookkeeper or cotton buyer/seller.

      Delete
  2. This is awesome!! What a great success story! I can just imagine how excited this family was to receive these photos. You're awesome for doing this for them.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks, Jana, I enjoy doing this - I should have gone into investigative work I think.

      Delete
  3. Great job Teresa - you deserve a pat on the back! It's wonderful that you took the time to do some detective work and found the descendants of this family. Imagine they are thrilled to see their ancestors and have a copy of the pics.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks, don't I only wish someone would contact me with photos of my ancestors!!!!

      Delete
  4. Wonderful!! I am always so happy when I can send a photo back home..well done:)

    ReplyDelete
  5. What a thrill! It's like finding those missing jigsaw pieces behind the sofa.

    ReplyDelete
  6. What a great story. I've found that genealogists are some of the giving people I've had the pleasure of associating with. One kind woman who worked at a museum had an old photo album which was going to be gotten rid of. She tried to find a descendant of the album. I turned out to be the lucky recipiant. The family never knew about the album, but now we have a 19th century photo album with over 50 photo in it.

    You can read about my progrss to try and identify the individuals in the photo at Photo identification at Hidden Genealogy Nuggets .

    Regards, Jim

    ReplyDelete
  7. That is so exciting! It's definitely thrilling to re-unite a photograph with a family.

    ReplyDelete

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...