Thursday, January 31, 2008

More Family Stuff

Well, the Bag Lady has been quite a slacker this week. Due to the cold weather, the Cowboy has been home, which has distracted her slightly, and her computer has been acting up a little, too. The Cowboy is back to work today, and her computer seems to have resolved its sulkiness (a little, anyway), so she really has no excuse left.

She got a call from a distant cousin yesterday who is writing an article for a history book for the area where her ancestors settled about a hundred years ago. The Bag Lady spent a lot of time a few years ago doing family tree research on the Internet, and has become the unofficial family historian. So she didn’t get around to writing another post yesterday as promised. She did manage to upload a few more old family photos into her computer, though, so will share some of those with you. (actually, she will share only one with you because she can't get the rest to load - don't know if it's Blogger's fault or her computer...sigh)

Her great-grandmother, who she admires greatly, was a Crockett. Eliza Read was the youngest of nine children born to Jonathon and Jane Crockett. Two of her siblings migrated along with her to Canada from Nebraska in the early 1900’s: her sister Susannah Palmer, and her sister Cora Shively, (whose twin sister, Clara Thomas stayed in the States). Some time later, their sister Clara came for a visit and this photo was taken.

(left to right: the twins, Cora & Clara, Suzie, Eliza)


The Bag Lady is easily distracted by family tree research, and would dearly love to find more information about the rest of Eliza’s siblings. She had a sister named Ada, who married Marcelus Yaw and disappeared from the records shortly thereafter. Eliza also had a brother named Angus, who married a woman named Alice. The Bag Lady did have a photo of Angus and Alice and their children, but can’t find it right now…sigh. (she really needs to get her papers organized…)

13 comments:

Leah J. Utas said...

Err, aren't you the official family historian by now?

Good to be able to put names to the faces. Thanks

the Bag Lady said...

Gosh, dfLeah - it's nice to be official!! Thanks!

Hilary said...

Old photos are always nifty to see.. a piece of history and all that. Good stuff.

the Bag Lady said...

Thanks, Hilary. A little boring for the majority of folks, I'm sure, but thought some of the family members would enjoy them.

Reb said...

I agree with Leah, it must be official by now!

Geosomin said...

Cool. I love old photos. My Dad's been on a geneology kick the last few years and I love seeing the old photos. There's some really good geneology software out there for tracking family trees too...I've never gotten that into it.
I found blogger hiccups when I send big files. Maybe if you resized them smaller it'd be happier? Or buy a miniature rubber chicken and put it on top of it. It's a lab superstition, but they sell tiny rubber chickens to place on equipment as good luck charms and they keep electronic gizmos fro glitching. It must works...there's a few in our department at least!

the Bag Lady said...

Reb: well, okay, if you and Leah both say so, I guess it's official!

Geosomin - putting rubber chicken on shopping list immediately!!
I think most of the computer problems I experience are related to the dial-up connection - it's so slow.
Of course, I have no clue about any of this stuff - I am of the "plug it in and if it works it's all good" variety, so a rubber chicken is a perfect solution!

Crabby McSlacker said...

I love the photo!

Those gals look friendly but-- formidable. If I were a misbehaving kid I'd sure watch my step.

the Bag Lady said...

I think the tendency in those days was to look serious in photos. It was a big deal to have your picture taken. And perhaps they were formidable women - they certainly worked hard enough. My gr-grandmother was widowed at the age of 29 and never re-married. Talk about tough!!

Hilary said...

I think the serious faces you typically see in old photos occur because the photographer needed a long exposure time in order to capture the image. The subjects had to hold still for an extended period, and holding a smile would be unnatural and uncomfortable.

Emily said...

What a cool picture- I wish I had some old pictures of my family- it seems none of them were capable of operating a camera or someone along the way decided the pictures weren't important enough to keep!!

Thanks for the comment on my blog; I'm back and feeling very good today!!

the Bag Lady said...

Hi, Hilary: I think you are right about that, and it sort of remained the fashion for awhile even after the invention of faster cameras. Either that, or they really were grumpy...
Hi, Emily! Glad to see you back and feeling better!

Terrie Farley Moran said...

dfBagLady,

I love genealogy. Did a bit for a while, but then my attention wandered. (sigh) Although I did get back to the 1830s in Ireland on two lines. I keep meaning to try to reseach the other two, but they run cold right here in New York in the 1920's. Maybe some day . . .

You are so lucky to have pictures and luckier still to be the official family historian!!!

Terrie