Back in April I described how I think I
found a photo of a relative down here in Tennessee.
(See: Is Estate Sale Photo A Relative?)
I was telling my dad the story when he noticed one more detail in
common between my estate sale find and the photo I already had of
Fred Allion. The top button on the coat is different than the other
button(s). While I'm sure people could argue over whether the
deep-set eyes, mustache and nose look the same, the button difference
is one objective point of comparison. While it is possible that
having a different top button was a trend in the mid-1890s I suspect
that wasn't the case. However, if anyone has evidence to the
contrary, I would appreciate hearing about it.
In an effort to identify any connection
between the previous owners of the photo and myself I contacted the
people who conducted the estate sale. The woman confirmed that the
photo did come from the estate and that the family didn't know who
any of the people in the photos at the sale were. I asked her if she
would inform the family that I thought the photo was one of my people
and that if they were interested we could try to identify the link.
It has been a couple of months now and I have heard nothing.
Consequently, I can only assume they don't want to pursue it or the
estate sale people didn't pass along the information.
So, I did a bit of reverse genealogy to
see if I could find anything that way. Using the address of the
house as my starting point I was able to determine the names of the
residents as they turned up on several people finder sites. Because
ages were often included I guessed at their relationships to each
other. I then looked for an obituary for the oldest male in the
house who had an unusual first name. I found it and it confirmed the
presumed relationships. Surprisingly, a 101-year-old woman was also
living in the household (how current this age was I didn't know). I
hypothesized that this was the elderly man's mother. A search in the
1940 census with both their names pulled them up in Nashville along
with the sister mentioned in the obituary. So, armed with the names
of both parents, I found a marriage license and a maiden name, though
sadly no parents' names. Unfortunately, a quick search of census
records failed to identify either of them in census records prior to
their marriage. For one there were several possible families and for
the other there were almost none to choose from. Clearly, tracking
down a family connection will take more work, but at least I have
enough information to start if I can ever find the time. Right now I
have bigger genealogical fish to fry.
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