I can't believe we are already in week 3 of #52Ancestors. This week's prompt is "Favorite Photo". THAT IS HARD! I love all my photos, it is difficult to narrow it down to just one.
But...I decided to pick this one.
The reason I chose this one as a favorite is because it is a rare photo of taken in the late 1800s of my maternal great grandparents and 4 of their 5 children. The very tall man on the right is my third great grandfather, Jeremiah Sidney Truesdell. The lady in the middle with her arms folded is my third great grandmother, Georgia A. Segars Truesdell. The lady standing beside her, with the long ribbon on her dress, is my great-great grandmother, Frances.
So...my grandmother use to tell this story that her great grandfather came "from somewhere over the water" in a horse and buggy and married her blind great grandmother and he was a doctor of some kind.
Well...part of that was true. I discovered that J.S. Truesdell was born in Cattaraugus, New York. At some point, his family moved to Michigan. When he was 25, he was in the Civil War, serving in the Navy on the Union side. Of course, a great deal of the fighting took place in Georgia. While serving in Georgia, he somehow met Georgia A. Seagars, (Some info I found said her middle name was "America" but I haven't been able to validate that.
So, just before the end of the Civil War, he did get on a horse and buggy (which was the main means of travel for the average person at that time) and he rode it down to Georgia to marry her. They married in St. Andrews, Florida (which is near Panama City Beach) and they settled in Daleville, Alabama (just above the Florida panhandle border).
He was indeed a medical doctor. His wife, Georgia, was blind, but I haven't been able to find out if she was born blind or her blindness developed later in life.
So...some of the story, a good deal of it, was true...he just didn't come from Europe, as my grandmother thought.
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