A New Quest: Returning Photos to Family

 Genealogy research has long been a passion of mine.  Ever since my mother left me a pile of old family photos and I built my own family tree, I have been fascinated by the endeavor to identify family members and their pictures when available.  While I have done extensive research on my own line, and have quite a number of photos from different lines, there are still a few relatives whose photos I am missing, and of course once you get back in the early 1800’s, you have people who were never photographed at all.  Still, I am always looking for more.

Elizabeth "Bessie" Tucker

 So, a few months ago, I was contacted by Kate Brian Kelly, a woman who has a most fascinating and altruistic hobby of reuniting old photos with family members.  She basically buys old photos in antique stores and the like, then does research to identify descendants.  What she does is truly amazing and inspiring, and she provides the photos free of charge, even though she spends her own money to acquire these lost family treasures.  She reached out to me on Ancestry.com because she had found a photograph of my cousin, Elizabeth “Bessie” Tucker.  She married a Canadian, Lorne Alexander Rapley, and I don’t know if she had any children.  While the original print went to another cousin, I was grateful to see a digital copy.

 Shortly thereafter, Kate contacted me again, having found a photo of Elizabeth’s father, William Newton Tucker, who was my great-great grandmother, Mertie Gamble Count’s, first cousin on both sides of her family.  Her father was the brother of William’s mother, and her mother was the sister of William’s father.  Therefore, they had nearly the same genetic similarities as full siblings.  It was amazing to get a picture of William in his youth.

William Newton Tucker

 Kate runs a facebook group, The Photo Angel, which highlights success stories of reuniting photos with family.  Among her finds, she also discovered baby photos of my great-grandfather's, George Sylvester Count’s, sister Florella and Brother Hugh.  I suspect these pictures may have once belonged to my Aunt Martha Counts who died in 2012, as they turned up in Connecticut where she lived, but I honestly don’t know.  Anyway, it was great to see these.

 Following these experiences, I have decided it is time that I did my part to bring lost family photos to life.  I have already purchased a few batches of old photos with identifying writing on them, and using online resources like Ancestry and Familysearch, I will see who I can find.  I know I am always grateful when someone brings a new family picture to light, and I am expecting that others will be equally pleased to reclaim a little bit of their own personal heritage that might otherwise be lost forever.

 Therefore, I’ve started a new blog, to detail my research.  Following this post, the photos and individuals highlighted here will not be my own family.  Anyone is free to copy and share the pictures I find and share on this blog.  I think posting them here will be the easiest way to disseminate them to as many relatives as possible.

 I am not seeking renumeration for my work, though that means I may not be able to afford to do as much as I would like.  It can get expensive buying photos that are 100+ years old.  Different people have different reasons for wanting them, and antique stores can drive prices up based on demand.  I’ll buy what I can, and research when I have the time.  Either way, it is one of my many passions, and I feel it is good work well worth doing.

The Angell Link

As I mentioned in April, I recently uncovered some conflicting data on my Tucker side, concerning Sarah Angell Tucker, wife of James Tucker, mother of Simeon Tucker.  As explained in my Too Many Tuckers column, the data I had first posted last year was based on the findings of another cousin, and the more I research, the more it appears those claims were erroneous.  I generally try to vet my data more thoroughly before posting it on the blog, but when in need of a "T" column for the A to Z Challenge last year, I rushed things.

Further research gives far more credence to the Angell link, including the presence of Christian Church Angell's grave in the same Halifax, VT cemetery as James & Sarah (Angell) Tucker.

Excerpts from Avery F. Angell's book, "Genealogy of the Descendants of Thomas Angell, Who Settled in Providence, 1636," give some more interesting pointers about the Angell line, including the lineage of William Angell.  It seems William's particular line is a hard one to trace, but he's purportedly the son of James Angell, making him the great-grandson of Thomas Angell.  For those who aren't familiar with Thomas Angell, he was an illiterate teenager who accompanied Roger Williams into the wilderness to found Providence, Rhode Island (as the title of Avery's book suggests).

Details on the children of James Angell are hard to find, possibly because his descendants wished to distance themselves from him.  James was classified as legally insane at some point, though there is little else mentioned about it.

I won't go out on a limb and claim a definite link to Thomas Angell, but the evidence that currently exists seems to point in that direction.  It would be nice to uncover solid proof someday.

Too Many Tuckers

Last year, when I needed a "T" for the A to Z challenge, I put together a post about my Tucker line, which I hadn't thoroughly researched.  Now that I've had a little more time to pick through the available data, I have found possible inconsistencies, as is sometimes the case with data over 200 years old.

The line that follows my 5x great-grandfather James Tucker appears to be undisputed, and many other descendants have laid his line down with reliable documentation.  However, his alleged marriage to Sarah Angell Tucker on November 5, 1795 is probably incorrect.  Having now identified the siblings of Simeon Tucker, it is obvious that James and Sarah were married before this date.  No doubt, there was another James & Sarah Tucker who got married in 1795 in Charlemont, Massachusetts, and this may lead to the other disputed data, concerning Sarah Angel Tucker.



The Grave of Sarah Angell Tucker



The data I had received from a cousin about Sarah Angell Tucker's line asserted that she and James were cousins.  However, I was recently contacted by another cousin who had data showing that James Tucker's wife was actually Sarah "Angell," and that she was the daughter of William Angell & Christian Church.  Digging deeper, there appears to be some evidence to suggest this is the case, as explained by researcher Diana Todd.  A note she wrote concerning James Tucker and Sarah Angell's family has been circulating, which disputes several erroneous claims that I hadn't encountered before (such as James having two different wives named Sarah), and also lays out a pretty convincing case about the Angell line, that Diana has apparently researched thoroughly.

While I feel inclined to believe in the Angell connection, the sands of time have eroded the history enough to leave uncertainty.  I feel fortunate I have only run into such ambiguity a couple of times in my research, and that many of my other lines are more concrete and proven.

I still have a lot of work to do on the Tucker line, and I hope to find more time to research it when time permits.

Before I go, here are the children of James and Sarah Tucker, all born in Halifax, Vermont:

Lydia Tucker (b. 15 January, 1792)

Stephen Tucker (b. 19 February 1794 /Died 17 February 1882 in Jackson, PA)

Sarah Tucker (b. 4 November 1795 –Married James Niles on 23 April 1818 in Charlesmont, MA)

Amos Tucker (b. 13 June 1797 /Died 22 February 1855 in Halifax, VT)

Mary Tucker (b. 9 July 1799)

Cinthey Tucker (b. 22 April 1802)

Simeon Tucker (my 4x great grandfather, b. 22 February 1804 /Died 17 June 1867 in Harford, PA)

Joseph Tucker (b. 26 April 1806 /Died 9 September 1883 in Halifax, VT)

Esther Tucker (b. 22 May 1809)

Tucker Time

This Family Saturday column, I'm going to talk briefly about a family line I've only begun to research. There are quite a few Tuckers on my father's side of the family, and I hope to uncover more about this particular branch someday, though time constraints currently make it a low priority.

The most recent Tucker in my family is Florella Amanda Tucker, born March 30, 1828 in Jackson, PA (about 30 miles north of Scranton). She was the daughter of Simeon Tucker and Lois Guile. She married Theodore Beza Gamble, and their daughter was my great-great grandmother, Mertie Florella Gamble, who married James Wilson Counts.

When I first ran into Tuckers in my family, I wondered if I might be related to Preston Tucker, the little-known car developer who was shafted by the "Big Three" auto makers in the late 1940's. He was a visionary in the field of car design, which is why the powers-that-be of the day fought to put him out of business. My father was very much a "car guy," so I learned a thing or two about Preston Tucker from an early age, though it wasn't until I saw the factual movie starring Jeff Bridges that I came to understand and respect his genius.

Well, as interesting as that may be, I haven't been able to trace any relation to Preston Tucker. His ancestors showed up in America a couple of hundred years after mine, so if we are distantly related, I'd have to trace his roots back into the 1500's, or perhaps even earlier. If that's even possible, I doubt it would be feasible to consider him a cousin at that point. Oh, well...

There are literally thousands of less distant cousins on my Tucker line, and as I said, I have yet to trace many of them. Simeon apparently had seven brothers and sisters, and his parents (both Tuckers, 3rd cousins once removed) had many siblings of their own. I really hope to put together a more comprehensive picture in the future, but at present most of my research has been vertical, as I sought to trace my own lineage.



Tucker Family
Coat of Arms



I've been able to trace the family line back to the 1400's in England, but the line could go centuries beyond that. There are apparently baptismal records for the ancient Tuckers going back almost to the Doomsday invasion of 1066. As impressive as that may be, there are a few lines of my family which can be traced even further (though I still have much work to do on them, so I won't go into detail just yet).

The first Tucker in my family who came to America was Robert Tucker (b. June 8, 1604 /died March 9, 1681). He came from Kent, England. He settled in Norfolk county Massachusetts sometime in the 1630's and married Elizabeth Allen in 1651. He may have had a previous wife, as his younger son, Benjamin, was born in 1646, while son Ephraim was born in 1653. Picking through various data, I have found mention of Robert being married to another woman named Susan Hyde, though information is limited, little more than a footnote. It is possible that Robert and Elizabeth had lived in sin for years and got married later, though it's a highly unlikely circumstance in the puritanical environment of early Massachusetts. Either way, one of the two sons I'm descended from was Elizabeth Allen's offspring.

Ephraim Tucker (b. August 27, 1653 /died October 1, 1736) married Hannah Gulliver on September 27, 1688 in Milton Massachusetts. Their son, Stephen Tucker Sr. (b. April 8, 1691) married Hannah Belcher on August 30, 1716 in Milton, MA. Their son, Stephen Tucker, Jr. (b. April 7, 1731 /died August 13, 1766) married Mary Brown in Preston City, Connecticut. Their son, James Tucker (b. October 29, 1762 /died September 18, 1841), was the father of Simeon.

Back to Robert Tucker's older son; Benjamin Tucker, Sr. (b. March 8, 1646 /died February 27, 1713) married Ann Payson in 1669 in Roxbury, Massachusetts. Their son, Benjamin Tucker, Jr. (b. March 8, 1670 /died October 8, 1740), married Elizabeth Williams in 1696, also in Roxbury, MA. Their son, Benjamin Tucker III (b. March 5, 1703 /died January 20, 1761), married Mary Warren in 1729. Their son, Benjamin Tucker IV (b. January 23, 1734 /died September 13, 1806), married Martha Davis on December 14, 1760. Their daughter, Sarah Angell Tucker (b. November 29, 1769 /died January 8, 1842), was the mother of Simeon.

So, bringing us up to the cousins marrying, James Tucker married Sarah Angell Tucker on November 5, 1795 in Charlemont, Massachusetts. They moved to Halifax Center, in Windham county Vermont, which is about 10 miles north of their marriage place, and Simeon was born there in 1804.

It's not the most comprehensive posting I've made about my family research, but it's a good basis for further investigation. I hope you have found something of interest in it.