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Wednesday, August 03, 2011

A WEST REUNION PICTURE PUZZLE

Back when I first started doing genealogy online I made contact with Lewis, who is
descended from my great granduncle Paul Leroy West.  Then the motherboard
on my computer crashed and I lost everything  on it, including email addresses
(and learned the hard way to back up EVERYTHING!). Recently Lewis found me
again (I'm guessing through my blog) and we exchanged discoveries since the
last time we'd been in touch.

Lewis is sharing some family pictures with me and one of them is this one:

The caption reads "Back Street  Upton  West Reunion". Down at the
bottom are the names "Louisa +Jonathan West". Those are my great great
grandparents and they are the elderly couple in the front row.  There are
no other names given for the people assembled for the picture, nor a date
for when the picture was taken. But I can make a few guesses for both.

First the date. it was taken sometime after the late 1890's and before 1918.
I know the latter because Jonathan died in 1917 but I base the first part on
the only other picture I have of Jonathan and Louisa:



The two boys are my grandfather Floyd West and his brother Clarence. My
grandfather was born in 1893 and in this picture(he's the older boy) he looks
to be around 5 or 6 years old, so that would date this picture between 1898
and 1900.

Jonathan and Louisa had aged considerably by the time of the reunion photo
They were married in 1865 so it's possible the reunion might have been in
1915 to celebrate their 50th anniversary.

But who else is in the picture with them?
Jonathan and Louisa had three sons: my great grandfather Philip J. and his
brothers Paul and John. I believe they are the three young men seated
in the row behind Louisa and Jonathan. Out of the three of them, the
man with the bangs is my guess to be P.J. based on a later photo:






At first I'd thought the teenager sitting at the far left with his hat on his knee
was my grandfather Floyd but looking at the light hair now I think it's
my granduncle Clarence.

As for the others, I've no idea as yet. I do know that Jonathan and Louisa
had a number of nieces and granddaughters so it's possible some of them
might be among the younger women. It's another family puzzle to work at!

Thanks Lewis for sending me this picture!

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