Treasure Chest Thursday: Signatures of TWO Great-Great-Great-Grandmothers on ONE Document!!

If you follow my blog you know that my great-great-grandfather Henry Martin Walker (1829-1865) died in the Civil War, leaving behind his widow Louisa Lorena Walker (nee. Dutton, 1833-1913), and three children -- Letta Agnes Walker (b. 1857), Samuel Clark Walker (b. 1860), and Henry Martin Walker, Jr. (1864-1952).

I ordered Louisa's Civil War Widow's Pension Application from the National Archives, and they sent me the first hundred pages (I still have to obtain the remaining).  What a wealth of information!  Tons of resources!  But the real treasure for me was on one of the first affidavits testifying that she was the mother and guardian of the three surviving children.  The hand-written paragraph reads --

Nancy S. Dutton is the mother of the claimant and Submit C. Walker is the mother of the deceased and they have both resided in the same town as the claimant and children for the last fifteen years and have both of them been present at the birth of all the above named children.

And there affixed below, the signatures of BOTH my great-great-great-grandmothers --

-- Five generations back from me, and six generations back from my children.  I got goosebumps!

Copyright © 2010 by Kevin W. Walker