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| Harrison and Belle (nee McLean) Pritchett, cropped and zoomed in. |
I never knew them, nor much about them -- prior to researching my family history, that is. No family stories passed down generation-to-generation... except that Belle may have escaped from slavery in Mississippi to Kentucky. Beyond that, their names, along with assorted census rolls, a few vital records and a deed, were all I had. So when my second cousin's image of someone's picture of this photograph arrived in my email box, I finally had something that made me feel like I could connect with them on a deep, personal level.
What is it about a picture that can bring about such a tight bond and cause one to feel they are no longer distant from another, even when they've never met? Perhaps it has to do with tiny subliminal things like the genuine warmth in Belle's smile or the affectionate touch Harrison stretches across that big empty gap between them. Please give me a moment's pause, if you will ... this photo still touches me deeply...
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| Harrison Pritchett and Belle (nee McLean) Estimate original picture taken circa 1891. Image courtesy of Jay Woodard. |
So when I first got this photo, I figured there must be some story to it, that it was about something important. Photos always have a story, and I was sorely in want of one about this couple. If there were only some clues left behind, maybe a caption written on the back? (Nope)
As it would happen, I took a genealogy course a few months prior, and one of our units dealt with photo identification -- gleaning every bit of detail out of a picture to get to the bottom of its story. So here was a great opportunity to put that to real live use. The course taught how it was possible to go from nothing more than an image of a few people and the place it was taken, to determining its date, identifying the subjects, their ages, their relationships to one another, and possibly even the occasion. Since I was already starting out with the names of my great-grandparents, I figured this ought to be way easier than the class assignment.
In the next installment, join me in uncovering its story.
End Notes
- Dan Bodenheimer, "Second Cousins Are Magic," Ancestry Blog (https://blogs.ancestry.com/ancestry : 22 July 2016).
