What an exciting week for me genealogy wise, all because of Facebook. I have met or reconnected with a number of relatives through Facebook and as a result have found pictures of grandparents and other relatives that I have never seen before. It always makes my day, but none so much as what I learned on Sunday. I added a new Facebook friend, a Merritt relative I had never even heard of, that lives in my home town of Mt. Vernon, IL. We have mutual ancestors, my great-great grandparents, Obidiah and Florence (Sewell) Merritt – his great-grandparents.
I always wondered why there were no pictures of Obidiah and Florence. They were not well off, farmers who worked the land to support their six children. I’m sure there was not much money for things like pictures, but even so I always wondered if there weren’t at least one or two pictures of them out there somewhere. Well, my new Facebook friend (my Merritt relative) posted these formal portrait pictures of Obidiah and Florence on Facebook and I almost fell off my chair! Halleluiah! The pictures had been hanging for many years in his father, Dewey Merritt’s house until he died.
I will talk more about Obidiah and Florence in a later post, but for now I am thrilled and thankful for my new Facebook friends and relatives, that we can share stories, and to finally have these pictures.
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| Obidiah J. Merritt 1851 - 1914 |
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| Florence Jane Sewell Merritt 1861 - 1902 |
Thrilling! How glorious for you both.
ReplyDeleteThat is SO cool. Nice job.
ReplyDeleteWoohoo, Teresa! I haven't found connections through FB yet but have connected via the internet to someone who could identify faces of their ancestors in an old Wedding Photo that I had. And it turned out we shared G G Grandparents :-) Jo
ReplyDeleteThat is so wonderful. I love it when we are able to make family connections on the internet and answer some questions we had about one relative or another.
ReplyDeleteWonderful photos...