52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: 2020, Week 2 -- Favorite Photo

-


Simply not possible, so here's one of many favorites. Taken in Van Nuys, California ca. 1953, pictured (left to right) are my Aunt LaVerne, her son and my first cousin Robert, and my Uncle Bill who was visiting his sister while deployed to the Korean War.*

LaVerne had been living in California for years, far away from most of the family back in Texas, so presumably this was the first time that Bill had met his nephew Robert. I don't know if Bill was traveling to or from Korea when this photo was taken.

I assume the photographer was Harold, LaVerne's husband and Robert's father.

(*Since two of the three people in this photo are still living, I am not including complete names.)

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: 2020, Week 27 -- Solo

-
Image
“How about someone on a line where you feel like you're the only one researching them? (I have a couple of those!)” --Amy Johnson Crow I know exactly how you feel, Amy. Welcome to my SHEHORN family. Unaided, unaccompanied, unassisted I search. I fly solo because I haven’t encountered another researcher since the mid-1980s who knows anything about this family.  My confidence that I’ve found “my” Shehorn family is fairly low, because there are so many unknowns. Here’s what I know as fact: Me < My Mother < My Grandfather (Ralph Wayne Jones) < My Great-Grandfather (John Henry Jones, Jr.). These first four generations I know exist, as I have the primary source evidence. :) Then the record gets a little sketchy when the Shehorn name is introduced. John Henry Jones, Jr.’s mother may have been Mary Eleanor Shehorn (b. 1835-d. ~1908). Mary’s father may have been William Shehorn (b. ~1802-d. 1846). The only “evidence” I have connecting John Henry Jones, Jr. to his mother is (1)
Read more

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: Week 27 -- Independence

-
Image
My maternal 5x great-grandfather Zebulon Brevard was born 29 March 1724 in Cecil Co., Maryland and died 8 Aug 1798 in Iredell Co., North Carolina. In between he married, raised a family of 10 children and "assisted in establishing American Independence" [1] by serving as an ensign in the colonial militia in Mecklenburg Co., North Carolina. He also served as a jury member in the same county. (Perhaps that will make you rethink avoiding jury duty.) Obviously not a Brevard from the 1700s. This is my paternal grandfather John Frederick Goehring with a 48-star U.S. flag. I estimate this photo was taken ca. 1942 near the beginning of America's involvement in World War II. Although I don't know much about Zebulon Brevard (yet) as an individual, the Brevard family from that era were well-known and appear in many written histories of North Carolina. • The first Brevard ancestor in America -- Zebulon's father, John Brevard or Jean de Brever -- was a Huguenot refu
Read more

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: Week 15 -- Taxes

-
Image
Have you heard of poll taxes? Generally speaking, a poll tax is a tax levied on every adult, without reference to income or resources. (In Middle English, "poll" meant "head" so this was a tax on the head of every adult.) As a practical matter, poll taxes were a pre-condition of the exercise of the right to vote. [1] "After the right to vote was extended to all races by the enactment of the 15th Amendment, many Southern states enacted poll tax laws, which often included a grandfather clause that allowed any adult male whose father or grandfather had voted in a specific year prior to the abolition of slavery to vote without paying the tax. These laws achieved the desired effect of disfranchising African-American and Native American voters, as well as poor whites who immigrated after the year specified." [2] Although my Goehring ancestors presumably weren't denied any rights by failure to pay poll taxes -- being white, land-owning males and all -- I
Read more