Pictures...pictures...pictures whoo hoo!!

As a lot of you know I am crazy about family pictures.  I travel all over to collect pictures of my family. Colorado, Utah and Montana are a few of the places I have gone to visit family and collect photo.  I love getting to visit with my family and gather all this beautiful history.  A few years ago while I was at a conference in Utah I stayed with my aunt, and she loved to go through her photo's with me. But as she has so many and we were running out of time, she voluntarily offered to let me bring her photo's home and scan them as I had time.  Wow! I was so excited and a little nervous. I have two small children and who knows what could happen with them around. ;)  But my kids are/were wonderful and no harm came to her precious pictures.  In fact, I was able to not only scan the photo's but was able to organize and put them all in protective boxes for her. :D I am always so happy to be able to do that when family lets me bring home their pictures.  I did that with Grandma Bev's pictures that I have blogged about before. 

I try to set a time frame while working on the photo, as not to have them for years.  So I don't take the time to actually get to know each photo.  I usually see a photo and go "oh this is wonderful I will have to remember to come back to it".  Which for some reason or another, I get sidetracked and forget about it.  I do this often, probably not the best thing for a genealogist to admit.  Well maybe some genealogist can relate to being sidetracked. ;) 

So I have these huge photo collections from different relatives, containing some of the most wonderful photo's.  I know a lot of people that have the problem of a hoarding relative, someone who has all the family photo's but won't share....yeah, we all have one...or two...or three.  BUT, I am not one of them.  I am so excited for the pictures that I have collected and wanted to do a little something for my sibling's for Christmas.  I won't go into details because they haven't gotten their gifts yet. ;)  Well, while working on these presents for my family, I ran across a photo that made me take another look...and then another.  And then I connected it with two other photo's.  I was trying to finish up my gifts yesterday to put in the mail this morning but these photo's kept bouncing around my head and distracting me.  Once I had finally finished late last night, I decided I needed to know about these people in these three photo's. 

So I gathered what I knew about them, sat with my magnifying glass and started piecing together family members.  When I had gone as far as my eye's would let me, I emailed them to a few family members hoping for some help.  While I waited for replies I decided to do some research on ancestry.com to try to figure out a couple more.  Perseverance pays off.  I got the names of a couple more people.  I heard from a couple family members and they did their best to help but they haven't researched the family and couldn't remember, but that is alright. Then I had a cousin call me this afternoon, leave a message and we chatted about the pictures this evening.  She is going to try to help with some.  I am going to follow a couple of the younger girls in the photo's and see where that leads me. 

These photo's are of my Grandma Marie Timbrel's mothers family.  Marie's maiden name was Stover.  Her mother was Mollie (Batten) Stover Smith Reynolds.  Mollie married Lurton Stover on 27 Jul 1897, they had four children Helen, Marie, Oscar and Charlene.  When Charlene was just days old, Lurton passed away.  Mollie remarried three more times, one of whom I have been unable to find.  There are stories that after Lurton passed away and Marie remarried he didn't like the kids, and she was forced to put them into a children's home.  She divorced him and got her kids back.  I have not been able to  find any records to any of that.  But I do know that on 14 Feb 1910 she remarried Thomas Smith and he helped her raise the kids. She was know as Grandma Smith to most of the family. I worked a little bit last night on the Batten side of the family.  I will go back to it...what?! I will...in time.  After, I finish recovering from my surgeries and Christmas I want to continue my work on the Duel side of the family.  But after that I will come to this side.  I swear I must have ADD...oh look something shiny, a new ancestor. lol. :D

Nelson Batten, Marie Stover, Mollie Stover, Dorsey Conaway, Charlie Batten, Jane Batten, Gertie Batten, Helen front: Charlene Stover, Juanita Conaway, Pauline Batten

Dorsey Conaway, Juanita Conaway,  Helen Stover, Marie Stover, Mollie Stover, Charlene Stover, Nelson Batten, Charlie Batten, Pauline Batten, Gertie Batten

back: unknown, unknown, unknown, unknown, unknown, Dorsey Conaway, Jane Batten, Nelson Batten, Gertie Batten, unknown, Charlie Batten middle: Marie Stover, Helen Stover, unknown, unknown, unknown front: Charlene Stover, Pauline Batten, Juanita Conaway, unknown, unknown

Are they not so very beautiful?!?!  I can't believe I have had these for so long and forgot all about them.  I love these photo's.  I think I need to take a photoshop class at the college though because I don't know how to get the pen off the photo's.  I know there is a way of doing it, it's just beyond my capabilities right now. ;)  If anyone can identify the unknown's please let me know.  Or if (gasp) I made a mistake. lol.  I know it happens, just don't tell my husband I admitted that. :D