As with all records, it is always a good idea to ocassionally look back at your photo collection to see if there are any new clues that we might have missed in the past.
These are pictures of my wife's 2nd great grand aunt, Fannie Harris. Fannie had two sisters, Willie Mae and Grace Harris. Both of her sisters died about 1909. These pictures were probably taken sometime around the turn of the century. The first picture shows Fannie riding an alligator. If you haven't guessed yet, the picture was taken in Florida (see the cabbage palms in the background). This picture is typical of the pictures we have of Fannie. Most of them show her with alligators. I am not really sure why she has the alligators in her pictures but it does exemplify
her strong will and independence. This woman was married twice, one of her husbands was a limo driver and she ran a hotel in Jacksonville, Florida. The hotel was called Hotel Adams and it still stands but today it is more of a flop house located adjacent to the Greyhound bus station. We have had a real difficult time finding records for this family. We believe that her father came to Florida to fight during the Seminole Wars and they settled in a small town called Yalaha in central Florida. The town was named by her brother-in-law's father. Yalaha sits on Lake Harris which was named for her grandfather who surveyed the lake. We have not found any census records with the family listed. The only records we have found so far are city directories from the late 1880's. The difficulty of finding records for this family make the pictures that we do have all the more precious.
5 comments:
These are great pictures. Thanks for sharing them and the stories of the people in them.
Miles, I have Harris ancestors too! Do any of yours come from New York by way of Connecticut and England?
Our Harris line seems to come from Georgia in the mid 1800s but we still can't find any records on them.
She must have loved alligators! Great photos, thanks for sharing :)
What an interesting post, Miles - especially as I've just begun to learn how to really "look" at a photograph with a critical eye. I've just posted my first photo comment (as part of the same Genealogy Writing Prompt activity)and I now realize how enriching and useful it can be to focus on one photograph at a time rather than just skipping through my albums!
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