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