Cee’s Odd Ball Photo Challenge – 3/25/18

For more of Cee’s Odd Ball photographs, click here

 

 

 

This week’s photos were taken at a local cemetery and show some interesting grave site decorations.

Photo Credit: Susan Spaulding

 

Photo Credit: Susan Spaulding

 

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Stone Angels

I love photography and I love cemeteries, so imagine my excitement when I found a photography challenge that combined both together. My entries for Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge – Tombstones and Cemeteries  are a series of angel headstones. I hope you enjoy them.

Photo Credit: Susan Spaulding.

Photo Credit : Susan Spaulding

The Curse of the Common Surname

We all face brick walls during genealogy research and the one I hate most is having a too-common surname. Unless there is a lot of family lore full of hints, an uncommon given name, or GPS precision as to where they lived, trying to sort out family members with common names can be quite… trying.

Case in point is my 2^nd great grand-father James Snyder Brown. The surname ‘Brown’ just so happens to be one of the top 10 most common names, based on the 1990 census. A family line does not produce 1.7 million descendants from nothing so I image even back in the early 1800s, the name Brown was fairly common.

I don’t know a lot about James Snyder, or Snyder James as he was sometimes known as (or S.J as recorded on his tombstone). He was born on 30 Oct 1827, some place in South Carolina. His parents and any brothers or sisters are still a mystery. He married my 2^nd great-grandmother Mary Ann Walker, a line more thoroughly documented in spite of the common last name, and they had nine children, more or less. I know the family lived in Itawamba, Mississippi for a while, and in 1868 moved to Johnson County, Texas, where died on 11 May 1881. I know that much because I have visited his grave at Center League Cemetery. He died on 11 May 1881.

In all honesty, I haven’t spent a lot of time on this line. I’m sure there is more information available today and with DNA testing it is much easier to connect with real family members who may have information I am missing. I’ve also learned a lot of new techniques for breaking through brick walls and sometimes the smallest clue can yield great results.