52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: Week 2 "Favorite Photo"

 

The theme of week two for the "52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks" challenge is "Favorite Photo."

This is another fun theme for me, but I'd like to share a little background info first. I have always been fascinated with history. Especially local and family history. When I was a little girl, my sister and I spent our lovely summer days with our grandmother while our parents were at work. Oh, the adventures we had!

One outing that I looked forward to each summer was the Clark County Historical Museum. What fun to explore their collection which is housed in an historic home that was the first post office for our hometown. 

I did a few small family history projects during my elementary and high school years, but nothing too in-depth. After the birth of my oldest son, I really felt driven to explore his ancestry. I began building a family tree and spent over a decade working diligently to collect ancestors and the facts of their lives. Census records, birth & death registers, and photos of their grave sites. 

About 12 years ago, I realized that I had very few photographs of our ancestors and that became a major focus of my research efforts for the next several years. I found some online, shared by distant family members, and others in local and county history books. And I began asking older relatives for any photos they might have. We now have a prized collection of family photographs. I'm not sure I could ever choose just one favorite - each one is special in it's own way.

The one that I would like to share today features my 3rd great grandmother, Ida McCoy Shaner. Ida was born in January 1880 in Knox County, Indiana to William McCoy and Nancy Wilson McCoy. She married Charles Shaner 12 Sept 1897, also in Knox County. Ida and Charles had 9 children, with 8 still living at the time of Ida's death in January 1934 at the age of 54. 

The photo came from an album of my great grandmother, Bonnie Edgin. In Bonnie's handwriting, the photo was identified as "Grandma Shaner with chicks."

The first time I saw the photo, I felt such a closeness to Grandma Shaner. I love animals and the farm life. I grew up in a small town, but my husband and I bought his family farm a few years ago and have been building a small homestead on these few acres. The fact that Grandma Shaner loved her chickens enough to pose with them for her portrait just really spoke to my heart. Like Ida, I have spent my life in the county I was born in  - getting married and raising my family here.