26 April 2015

The Rewards of Genealogy - Treasures of Every Type

Genealogy has brought me a lot of reward; Discoveries, self-satisfaction, education.  Even tangible rewards as other historians come into items belonging to my ancestors and find me to give them to.  Emotionally, genealogy has impressed on me the importance of family; My sense of place, not just in my family tree, but in humanity.

Interesting how all that relates to what is perhaps my greatest reward so far -- meeting my second cousin Tony.  My great-aunt Jennie Long (nee. Hall, 1879-1968) was a family historian herself, and she passed all her research and treasures onto her grandson Tony.  Fortunately she also passed on an interest in the hobby, which is also a treasure.  Tony blesses me, continuingly sharing treasures from great-aunt Jennie's files and collections.

Here is another (click on images to enlarge) --


D.S. Leach, Corpral(sic) W. Bishop, Both members of Co. C 33rd Regt Ills Vet. Vol  
Jan the 2nd, 1865 
This is SUPER interesting to me and requires further research.  Great-aunt Jennie's father, my 2xg-grandfather George Hall (1845-1908) was in the 26th Illinois.  He also re-enlisted as a Veteran.  But as faithful readers of this blog know, way over on the other side of my family tree my 2xg-grandfather Henry Martin Walker, Sr. was serving in Co. A of the 33rd Ills.  And this CDV is dated EXACTLY two months before these two soldiers were in the railroad accident that killed my ancestor!

What I do know is this, the 33rd Ills was nicknamed "The Normal Regiment" because most of its members were from the Bloomington-Normal area of Illinois.  GG-grandfather George Hall might have been in the 26th Ills but guess where he was from?  You guessed it, the Bloomington-Normal area.  First guess is these are his friends.  In any case, my intuition tells me there is a lot of back story.

And here we have another thing Genealogy gives me -- excitement, hope, and a sense of anticipation about what new discovery might be right around the corner.

Copyright © 2015 by Kevin W. Walker

No comments:

Post a Comment