Surprising Find...

Sarah Jane Padgett Fuller Calhoun was my great great grandmother. She was first married to my great great grandfather, Alexander Fuller, and together they had two children.  Alexander died in the Civil War.  Sarah next married William Calhoun who also served in the Civil War.  They had several more children together.  In searching for a picture of Sarah Jane, I first made the acquaintance of a distant cousin who shared a picture of her in her older years.  I also received a copy of a picture from my aunt that I shared in a previous blog of two grandmothers and a great grandmother collectively looking at a new baby.  I was happy to have copies of these pictures because my immediate family did not have any pictures of her....or so we thought.

This year my husband and I became grandparents...and so I was going thru old boxes looking for my baby book.  We wanted to compare my baby picture to my new granddaughter's picture.  I found the old box with my book in it and as I was going thru it a picture fell out from between the pages.
I picked up the picture and it was the picture of a woman that I thought I recognized.  On the back of the picture it was labeled as "Grandmother Calhoun".   I have no idea how it got there.  I have gone thru my baby book many times over the years and have never seen the picture before.  What a wonderful surprise!!!

               *Picture of Sarah Jane Padgett Fuller Calhoun from the collection of Debra Waggoner
#52Ancestors  #Surprise

At the Library...

One fun thing I like to do while researching my ancestors starts at the library.  At lot of libraries will have a collection of city directories.  By using a city directory you can find an address for where your ancestor lived during a certain time.  My great, great grandfather, Tilghman Overton, lived with his brother, Mark, when he was in Lincoln.  On a visit to Union College Library in
Lincoln, NE I found a directory listing where Mark Overton was living at the time.

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He was living at 2110 Q St., in Lincoln.  I used the address and plugged it into Google Earth to see if the home still exists.  In this case it did not, but I still was able to get an idea of the area.


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Where the home used to sit there are now great walking trails.  It is hard to tell from the "street view" but what I see are sculptures and walking paths.

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*Google Earth PRO

Another address I found in the Omaha Public Library belonged to my great uncle George Boehler.
He was living at 102 S. 52nd St., Omaha Ne.  I had a lot more luck viewing this home.  George was a dentist in Omaha and he was a bachelor.  He did not own this home but rented a room here.  He died at a young age from compications of an appendicitis surgery in 1933.  I love being able to google an address and see where my ancestors resided.  Somehow this makes them more real!
#52Ancestors  #Atthelibrary