Wednesday, February 12, 2020

So Glad to Meet You!

I wanted to know them.  I wanted to know about their lives, about their families, and I especially wanted to know what they looked like.  I wished I could meet them in person but a photograph would do.  That is, my father's maternal grandparents, Fred and Elvira (Bartley) Gerner.  I'd learned from census research that my grandmother, their daughter, Beulah (Gerner) Doyle, had more than a dozen siblings and that they'd lived in both Butler and Mercer Counties, Pennsylvania.  From a great aunt I learned that Elvira had been a midwife with her own horse and rubber-wheeled buggy.  But I didn't know what they looked like, and they'd lived as recently as the 1920s and the 1940s.  Someone had to have photographs!

In fact, my father had less than a dozen photos of his family:  there were photos of his paternal grandparents, one of his mother who died when he was an infant, and a double photo of his father when he was a youth, but that was it.  I was grateful for what I had but I dearly wanted to know what his grandparents looked like.  To meet them, so to speak.  I envisioned Fredrick as a big man with a thick, dark mustache and Elvira as a strong, petite woman.

Through letters I reached out to distant cousins and hoped that other cousins might find this blog and contact me. 

I corresponded with one of my father's cousins for a few months and then, one day, he sent a package with photographs and I caught my first glimpse of my great-grandparents.  It took my breath away!


I was thrilled!  There were Fred and Elvira and 12 of their 16 children.  So, Fred was not a big fellow with a great mustache and Elvira was not petite.

And then a year or so later another cousin contacted me because of this blog and sent a photograph of the Gerner family taken when the family was younger.


Again, I was thrilled to see photographs of my grandmother, great-grandparents, and some of their children.

I can't decide whether being discovered by cousins who share photos or discovering cousins who share photos is my favorite.  Either way, I'm please to meet cousins and pleased to meet my ancestors through photographs.

This post was written for Amy Johnson Crow's 2020 version of 52 Ancestors.  The post topic was "Favorite Discovery." 

--Nancy.

Copyright ©2020, Nancy Messier.  All Rights Reserved. 
Do not copy or use any content from this blog without written permission from the owner. 

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8 comments:

  1. What a treasure! My dad and mother didn't have many photos either. Most of what I have now is from relatives who were kind enough to share. Great post!

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    1. Thank you, Valerie. Isn't it great when relatives share? Even if they want to keep the original and only share a scan, if it's a good scan we can still enjoy it!

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  2. Fantastic! Thanks for sharing. Elvira looks like she was sturdy and knew her business from first hand experience...

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    1. Thank you, Barb. LOL. Yes, I suspect that Elvira had lots of first-hand knowledge about childbirth. Who better to be a midwife, I guess!

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  3. I too wish I had pictures of my extended ancestors … like wedding photos. Wow, 16 children, she would HAVE to be sturdy! My great grandmother had at least 13... Grampa was #5. He only had 3 of his own... guess they finally allowed birth control methods because both my parents are the youngest child in their families of 3 siblings. I read somewhere that birth control was against the law in the USA at one time.

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    1. Wedding photos would be such fun to have, QuiltGranma. My parents didn't have any wedding photos and I've never seen wedding photos of any of my ancestors. Families have definitely gotten smaller since the 1800s!

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  4. That's wonderful Nancy! I feel the same about my ancestors, wouldn't it be grand to be able to spend a day with them?

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    1. Thanks, Ellie. Yes, it would be wonderful to be able to spend a day with an ancestor!

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