OLD PHOTOGRAPHS SERENDIPITY & COUSIN CONNECTIONS

Nichols family photos and documents.

Old photographs with unnamed faces gaze at me, asking to be identified and treasured. Labeled photographs ask for their story to be revealed and shared. I’m fortunate that several of my ancestors saved and passed on so many pictures. However, there are other family lines with gaping holes where there should be smiling faces. What happened to their family photos? According to Maureen Taylor, The Photo Detective, “Photos aren’t inherited in a direct line; most times they pass to a relative interested in preserving them. When that doesn’t happen, pictures go missing, get destroyed, or are sold.”[1]

I’ve filled in some missing faces using serendipity, cousin connections, and blogging. I was inspired by Cathy Meder-Dempsey’s blog, Opening Doors in Brick Walls, and her articles about Old Photographs Saved From Trash Cans. I wrote a series of posts about discovered photographs.

THE FIRST BIG DISCOVERY

His pale, somber eyes gaze at me from the computer screen. Unruly dark hair pokes out behind his pronounced ear lobes. A full mustache drapes over his lips, and a slightly graying goatee hides his chin. Although the photograph depicts only a head and shoulder view, he appears slender.  So, this is what you look like, Thomas Ackley Nichols? I’d scoured the internet for months looking for his portrait. Serendipity struck on the day I published my first blog about Thomas A. Nichols when I found his photograph on a “defunct” website. You can read more about his story here.

Adjutant Thomas Ackley Nichols, 9th PA Cavalry photos taken about 1864

Cousin connections and blogging led me to two additional photographs of Thomas.  I think the original picture is the center image, and the two identical photographs are copies and reverse images. Although Thomas is not wearing a hat, nor can we see a belt buckle, his buttons in the first and last photos are reversed.

1.  A third cousin read my blog and shared the photograph of Thomas on the left.  He also emailed me images of Thomas’s second wife (Lillian Bull) and their three children.
2.  A distant collateral cousin connected with me through ancestry.com; we share a 7x great-grandfather. She generously sent me a collection of Nichols’s family photographs, including the picture of Thomas on the right.

Unfortunately, some of the photographs in the Nichols collection are labeled, and others are not. Prior to receiving the images, I had very few photos of Thomas and his extended family. He had two wives, six children, and fifteen grandchildren, so I hope someone among his descendants is interested in family history and can identify the mystery pictures. I look forward to introducing additional members of the Nichols family and comparing family resemblances.

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Genealogy Sketch

THOMAS ACKLEY NICHOLS
Name: Thomas Ackley Nichols
Parents: Matthias Nichols and
Sarah [Ackley?]
Spouse: wife #1 Helena Knerr, wife #2 Lillian Bull
Children: #1 John Mathews Nichols, Bertha Virginia Nichols Donaldson, Charles Knerr Nichols                                                                                                                                                            #2 Mary Watson Nichols Dietsche[later Ditchey], Florence Ackley Nichols Snyder, Howard Ransloe Nichols
Relationship to Kendra: 3x Great-grandfather

1. Thomas Ackley Nichols
2. John Mathews Nichols
3. Mabel Elvina Nichols Hyde
4. John Fay Hyde
5. Jean Hyde Hopp Eichorn
6. Kendra Hopp Schmidt

© 2017 copyright Kendra Hopp Schmidt. All rights reserved.

[1] Taylor, Maureen, “A Mystery Photo from the Big Easy,” The Client Files (https://maureentaylor.com/mystery-photo-big-easy/?mc_cid=f8a8de703d&mc_eid=670c5a87f4: accessed 10 February 2017.