My grandson found this in my family tree

[Omaha Steve]

My great, great, great-grandfather. I never knew anything about him!


OS

[sinkingfeeling]

1. Hopefully, he was a Union member.

[Emile]

3. Pretty sure that's a Union hat.

[hlthe2b]

5. Yes. That is a union cavalry hat.

Important for the poster to mention, I think...LOL

[Lochloosa]

4. He was. That's the Union Hat

[Emile]

2. Unusual first name. That's pretty cool Steve.

My family in the United States only goes back to 1911.

[soldierant]

15. Not so much at the time. Biblical names

were common. (Ezekiels were often familiarly addressed as "Zeke.&quot

[3catwoman3]

6. What a find! I consider old family photos to be real treasures.

Other mementoes as well. I have several letters written by a paternal great-grandfather to his mother, while he was serving in the Union Army during the Civil War.

It was fascinating to read them. Difficult, too, as they were in pencil and pretty faded, and the very "flourishey" handwriting was sometimes hard to decipher.

A photo of my maternal grandfather recently showed up on ancestry.com. It was from his 1914 yearbook from Northwestern's School of Dentistry, He was only 24 then.

[czarjak]

7. Had Great-Great-Grandpa's.

On both sides!
And the Union one spawned the biggest bigots.
While The Confederate produced a line of preachers.
Weird?

[AverageOldGuy]

8. Mine are ALL Confederates

I was born and reared in Wilkinson County MS. I can count 21 Confederates in my lineage.

One of my Confederate ancestors was a Brigadier General who disagreed strongly with Jefferson Davis and senior generals on a major strategic issue, so, he was relieved and sent back home to his plantation. He was right -- the operation was a disaster for the Confederate Army. Later, as he was a passenger on a river boat between Memphis and New Orleans, he was shot to death by a man with whom he had a long-time land dispute.

[GoodRaisin]

19. Mine too.

My great great great was a confederate colonel.

[appleannie1]

9. I love Ancestry.com

I never met any of my grandparents. They had died when my parents were young so my parents did not know a whole lot about family. My mom's mother's name had been either Jones or Parry and that is all she knew about her maternal side. Through a DNA test, I learned that her paternal grandfather had served two tours in the Civil War and was shot in the leg a coupld weeks before the war ended during his second tour. He had a wooden peg leg from the knee down. Further back on his side I have 3 great a couple times back grandfathers that served in the Revolutionery War, one in Valley Forge and the New Jersey campaign after they crossed the river. Unfortunately, my mother died before Ancestry.com was a thing. I have taken the family back to almost the Middle Ages and find it fascinating. You are fortunate that you could even see a picture of one of your ancestors. I have only been able to find a couple of their graves. My great grandfather is in the National Cemetery in Dayton, Ohio so that one was easy. Some, I found out where they were buried but there are no headstones and one I found out where the cemetery is but could not locate any lasting trace of it.

[LittleGirl]

10. My mother's side

Has confederate soldiers as ancestors. Most of her family still live in the south and are trumpers but she was a liberal. My cousins that I keep in touch with are blue dogs.

[3auld6phart]

11. awesome

What great find

[ananda]

12. At least he was a Yankee.

Mine was a Confederate, and I have
ancestors who owned slaves.

I hate revealing this, but the truth
is the truth.

[GoodRaisin]

20. You are not alone.

I also have ancestors that owned slaves.

[twodogsbarking]

13. From what I have read more soldiers died from health problems than the war. Gut infections, other stuff.

That too rivals being shot. Nice pic. Good on you.

[LoisB]

14. Cool.

[Borogove]

16. That's a great picture, Omaha Steve. Something to be very proud of. My great-great-grandfather fought at Gettysburg.

[Warpy]

17. Looks like he was in the Indian Wars.

Civil War hats were different and a lot less practical, especially out west.

Also, this looks like a Daguerrotype photo, one that was likely displayed and faded over the years. Civil War photos were mostly tintypes toat are crisp and clean 160 years later. The photographic process also dates the picture and the war he likely fought in. Daguerrotypes quickly took the place of tintypes since multiple copies could be printed on paper. With a tintype, one copy was it.

Still, photography changed so rapidly in the 19th century as one process supplanted another that the photos themselvers can nail down a date and give some historical context for the photo.

[Beringia]

18. Wonderful

[GoodRaisin]

21. That is very cool. My cousin used Ancestry and was able to trace back

our grandfather’s family tree all the way back to my 9th great grandfather, born 1587 in England. Records showed that he was aboard the ship “Sea Venture” commanded by Captain Christopher Newport that set sail from Plymouth on June 2, 1609 for the Jamestown colony. On it’s journey the ship wrecked at uninhabited Bermuda, an incident said to have served as the inspiration for Shakespear’s “Tempest”. In 10 months they built two more ships and sailed on to Jamestown. It goes on that his wife gave birth to a son in 1623 before he met his end in a drunken brawl in 1628.

[yellowdogintexas]

22. WOW that is so cool We lost a lot of old pictures when my mom's house burned

A couple of years ago, I joined My Heritage. Some branches of my family tree go back to the 1600s in Switzerland and England.

We did confirm a connection my grandfather had always told us: His great grandfather was President John Tyler; there are also couple of US Senators in that family. Also some of the family were in the Northern Army and some were in the Confederate.

Scattered here and there are a few documented Revolutionary War participants.