Treasure Chest Thursday - Photographs

Photographs. We take them for granted today. They're everywhere - and considering the many sources for them - digital cameras, cell phones, computers, 'spycams', security cameras, old fashioned film cameras - we're in danger of being overwhelmed with images. But in generations past, they were something special.

When I asked my husband, what he would consider a 'treasure', his first response was this portrait of Dudley Emerson Jones, his Great-great Grandfather.

I admit - I like this photo too. I see the picture of the man who joined the Third Regiment Iowa Volunteer Calvary September 20th, 1861 in Keokuk, Iowa, leaving his wife and two children, one of them less than a year old. I see a man who served his time honorably, appointed First Battalion Quartermaster on entrance to service, promoted First Lieutenant of Company L, May 2, 1862, and mustered out August 9th, 1865.

The war changed Dudley and his family, as it was during their Company's occupation of Little Rock, Arkansas, that showed him the opportunities for business, and convinced him to move there after the war.

This picture is a copy of the original that now is stored in the University of Arkansas Special Collections. Many other pictures and personal papers, were donated in 1995 for the purpose of preservation and research. Now anyone studying a relevant topic, can, with permission, access those papers. [This picture is David in 1995 at the University of Arkansas, behind the portrait of Dudley E. Jones, surrounded by the other pictures and papers.]

Unlike a lot of family members, Dudley wrote a lot about his life. And though I didn't come along in time to look through those papers and pictures before they were donated to the University, I'm still glad they're there, being preserved for future generations.

Genealogy Site Trials

You know, those trial periods using the different internet sources are actually quite helpful. My current subscription to Ancestry.com started that way. I started it with the idea that I might be able to search out all I needed during the two week trial. A foolhardy idea, I know. Even though I spent almost every waking moment working at the searches, I quickly realized that even if I did find everything I searched for, each search inevitably ended in needing a new search.

This week I put the free 7 day trial at Footnote to good use. The Civil War Confederate records and the World War II Army Air Force records were of specific interest to me, having quite a few ancestors from North Carolina who fought for the Confederacy and a distant cousin who died in an airplane crash during World War II. After finding quite a few Civil War records, and even a few Revolutionary War records, last night, right before the trial was to end, I found a record of the Army Report submitted after our cousins aircraft was shot down. There were twenty-four pages of information, the first page of which confirmed that this was indeed our cousin. It was an exciting find, and certainly worth the efforts expended during the trial. However, after this find, I reviewed their currently holdings, and found little else that might be of use, so I let the trial lapse.

I also tried the 7 day trial at Genealogy Archives, but had very little luck there. I entered quite a few of our family names in the general search, and came up with only a few results, all of which I had already found at Ancestry.com. In my case, I didn't think it would be very useful, and let it lapse as well.

So if you're considering trying them, I'd say do it - especially if there's a free trial period.