Favorite Discovery: Eliza May Wells Daguerreotype ~ 52 Ancestors #7

This week's theme is Favorite Discovery. My favorite discoveries come from people who contact me because they found my blog and want to share something with me.

A few weeks ago, I received an email from someone who was searching the name Eliza May Wells and came across my blog post from October 2012: Wordless Wednesday: Eliza May Wells.

He shared an image of a daguerreotype with a note referencing Lucinda, Edwin, and Ruth Wells of Hopkinton, New Hampshire. I recently blogged about these three Wells siblings and that they stayed Close to Home. (It was his email that prompted me to write that post, as I was curious to find out how the three siblings died within days of each other in 1882.)

I was thrilled, as I have a carte de visite that was created from the original, which I shared with him, confirming who was in the image.

My original photo and the note on the back:

Eliza May Wells (Greeley)

and

Gt. gt. Aunt Lucinda Wells

Oldest sister of Thomas G. Wells

I don't know whose handwriting this is, but it might be Ethel May Greeley (Copeland) writing a note to my grandfather, Lowell T. Copeland, as Lucinda would have been his great-great aunt.

My correspondent provided me with the image of the daguerreotype (slightly cleaned up, to digitally remove some dust under the glass):

Same Name: Ruth ~ 52 Ancestors #6

This week's theme is Same Name. I have several branches of my family where I have trouble remembering different generations of ancestors because of names being repeated.

Here is a case where the name Ruth appears in seven generations. As I've noted before, a picture helps visualize this.

Maine to Minnesota: So Far Away ~ 52 Ancestors #5

This week's theme is So Far Away.

I'm always interested to see an ancestral family where one or two of the siblings move far away, leaving most of the family close to home (see last week's post at Wells Siblings Stayed Close to Home).

Joseph Smith (1773-1852) and his wife Martha Robinson (1775-1857), originally from Litchfield, Kennebec County, Maine, and who died in Lee, Penobscot County, Maine, had eleven children, born between 1795 and 1817: Sarah, Hannah, Eliphalet, Mary, Tappan, Braddock, Martha Jane, Agna, Joseph, Elijah, and Clara Augusta. Almost all of their children were born in Litchfield, Kennebec County, Maine. Most of them died in Maine. The oldest, daughter Sarah, is my third great-grandmother and I wrote about her at Matrilineal Monday and Found a Death at FindAGrave.

However, at least one of Sarah's younger brothers, Joseph, decided to move west: over 1,500 miles to Minneapolis, Minnesota. He appeared in the Minnesota territorial census in September 1857, a census that the territory had to take in order to qualify for statehood, which was official in May 1858.

In 1860, in Saint Anthony, Hennepin County, Minnesota. Joseph, age 47, was working as a carpenter and owned $200 in personal property. His 32-year-old wife, Lucy, and his four older children, Frederick, Hellen, Angus, and George, were born in Maine. The youngest, six-month-old Anna, was born in "St. A., Minn." Don't you love when a census gives you this detail!

1860 U.S. Census, Hennepin County, Minnesota, population schedule, St. Anthony, p. 58 (penned), dwelling 521, family 458, Joseph Smith; image, Ancestry (https://www.ancestry.com: accessed 3 February 2020); citing NARA microfilm publication M653, roll 570.