The Picture

I know I’ve made mention of “The Picture” before.  I’m talking about the picture my cousin gave me, you know the one, the one that made me cry. This is also the photo I used for the Geneabloggers cry to arms. (See post "I Am The Face of Genealogy" posted on 5 June 2011)

To refresh your memories this is a picture of my great grandmother, Felicie Romero and all of her siblings taken in 1890.

Felicie Romero aka Mrs. Henry Landry
(standing on left) and her siblings

What a gem, on so many levels. First off, of course, there is the fact that it was taken in 1890. 1890, that ominous year where there is no census to tell you the members of a family. But here it is. I have all her siblings, how great is that, and as you can see they are all of an age where any of them or maybe all of them are out of the house. So, without this photo I might not have ever been sure of how many siblings she had.

On another level this is the only picture I know of for Felicie, maybe the only picture for any of the Romero clan.

The family photos that so many people take for granted or cherish dearly were sadly lacking in my family photo albums. I have many 20^th century photos of my immediate family, (my adopted family that raised me,my son and husband) but I have almost no photos of grandparents, great grand parents or older family members. No family reunion photos or civil war photos. (Deep sigh) No founding family members or first immigrants hang on my walls.

But with the gifting of this one photo there has been a shift. I now can be counted as one of the lucky ones who has a very old photo of an ancestor.

The photo is in pretty good shape, (as you can see) except for some disintegration at the edges and a tear down the middle. But I consulted a photographer at NGS who specializes in repair of damaged photos and he assures me (for a fee) the photo can be helped. The fee wasn’t as bad as I had thought it might be either, (less then $300) so I am going to send it off to him and let him work his magic.

I have a plan. Shhhhhh, don’t tell my cousins…but after I get the photo repaired I plan on making copies and sending the photo to all the cousins I know that are descended from this group. These are good Catholic families with lots of children for each family group for the last three generations. I don’t know all the descendents (yet) but a rough conservative estimate could be in the neighborhood of (let’s see, if 6 siblings each have 4 children how many children would be in the first generation?) Oh, my gosh….I could have more than 300 cousins who would want a copy of this photo. Maybe I want to rethink this plan. Ok, this is a limited offer…only cousins who have contacted me and can show me their relationship to anyone of the Romero clan (pictured) can have a copy. There that should bring the number down. But how fabulous would it be if I had more than 300 cousins from this one line contact me. The cost of copying the photo 300 times would be well worth it to me.

You know what else would be amazing about that. Felicie is not just my great grandmother, she is also my first cousin four times removed; her father was also the brother to my third great grandmother.

Let’s see if I can make that a little less confusing.

Antonio Romero married Marie Therese Segura sometime before 1804. They had at least three children, (I know of three because I am related to two of them) Sylvestre, Marie Rosalie, and Balthazar. Sylvestre married Marguerite “Irma” Dominque, and Marie Rosalie married Hubert Theriot. Sylvestre and Marguerite Irma had Felicie Romero (the grandmother pictured in the photo) and Marie Rosalie and Hubert had a daughter named Marguerite Orelia Theriot.

Marguerite Orelia’s line is one I have not done much work on but I know that she married Jean Therville Landry and that they had a son Henry Landry. Henry Landry married….wait for it…Felicie Romero his first cousin once removed.

So that is how Felicie ends up being my cousin and my grandmother.

So, I could potentially end up learning about the Theriot line too; all because of that one photo…you know, the one that made me cry.