Joseph Thompson Cheney is my 3rd great-grandfather. According to the records in my family, as seen on FamilySearch, Joseph was born 22 April 1833 in Scott, Cortland, New York to Elijah Cheney and Achsa Thompson.
The year before Joseph’s birth, his parents joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In 1849, they arrived in the Salt Lake Valley with a company of pioneers. 12 April 1860, Joseph married Louise Maria Austin. They were the parents of eight children.
On 30 September 1897, Joseph died in Laketown, Rich, Utah. You can read more about Joseph’s life as written by his daughter Delina here.
This photo of Joseph is a well-known photo. It can be found on Ancestry and FamilySearch. A wonderful scan of the original image can be seen here. My copy comes from a folder created by my Grandma, Mary Margaret Ellis, that she labeled as “CHENEY.” My copy is a photo that appears to have been a photo taken of an original. I went ahead and uploaded it, despite being a duplicate, because my scan is a much higher resolution than the other copies of this same photo.
Here is the back of my copy:
On a related side-note, I hope you will be patient when other users upload a photo that seems to be a “duplicate.” Their copy may be a larger file-size making it more suitable for prints. Or, they may have been in a hurry and didn’t check their ancestor’s photos before they uploaded. Either way, please be grateful for an abundance of choice instead of messaging the duplicate uploader cousins and demanding they remove their photo, as one of my distant cousins does. His efforts produced the wrong results and the only copies of two unique photos of my ancestor were deleted. Despite my messages to the cousins who deleted their photos, they have not been re-uploaded. What a loss for all of that man’s descendants. You don’t own your ancestors and you don’t own their memories tab on FamilySearch! Please, be kind.
Happy Thursday, I hope you will scan and share a precious photo today!! xoxo
What beautiful eyes he had!
Thank you, Amy. I noticed that as well. I wonder if they were a very light blue?
It sure looks that way to me.
He’s quite distinguished-looking! These old photos aren’t under copyright, so I can’t imagine demanding someone take their versions offline because you have the original. Seems rude.
Totally rude! I wish it were a misguided copyright concern. Nope, he sent out messages to everyone saying that duplicate photos were unnecessary and we needed to delete ours. That ancestor had something like 8 photos attached. Copies of three different photos. The user wasn’t discriminating enough to realize that two of the people he messaged had uploaded DIFFERENT photos and they were the only copies of those two photos attached to the man. Now they are gone. I told him very firmly that I would not be deleting my photo because it was the largest file size of the duplicates and that he needed to chill out with a reminder that he doesn’t own his ancestors and what a shame that his bossy messages caused the loss of the only two unique photos in the gallery. (I was clearly grumpy and not my usual self.) A week or so later he responded, apologized, and said I was right. Oh boy. I felt a little guilty for being so bossy in response but was also glad to think that hopefully he really did learn the lesson. 😉
Sometimes you have to fight fire with fire.
So true!! Not usually how I operate though. I probably need to be a bit tougher sometimes. 😉
Hi Amberly, I have been thinking a lot about your comments on “provenance.” I have received some scans of some old photos recently and will use your questions to help compose the details. It really helps so much. One of those is an early picture of my grandparents William and Jane Boles, so stay tuned!
Hi Sheila, thank you for your kind message! I look forward to seeing the photo of your grandparents!!! What a treasure. ❤️
My first thought was amazing eyes. I‘m glad the person you messaged came back with an apology. It shows you must not have been too tough.
Thank you, Cathy! I hope so. 😉