Another photo?… more than 150 years old!!!!!I heard from another “cousin” who has more old photos of the Sumner County Pryors. Amazing… he has a photo of Allen L. Pryor that’s probably earlier than any other known photo. It’s without his beard and probably from around 1850. He also has photos a couple more of Allen L.’s daughters. It’s interesting how you can work on the the family tree for 20 years and suddenly new resources surface. I am so thankful that these photos are being shared. I hate to think of them in a box and getting tossed out when someone’s house is cleaned out.
I’m amazed by the old photos from this “cousin’s” collection. Even if it sounds cliche, they are a window to the past. I loved looking at the clothes from the 1860’s and 1870’s. They look different than how they were interpreted 60 years later in “Gone With the Wind”. It’s interesting to study the faces to similarities to try to pair people up into family groups. 40 photos are now on the website and ready for identification. I hate to think of all the family history and old photos getting thrown out, lost or left in a drawer– that was a motivation to start the website. I don’t want to be the only one who has these photos so I’ve put 300dpi (print quality) files on Shutterfly.com. Shutterfly is reasonably priced, great quality, not too hard to figure out. Whomever wants prints of the photos now will have access to them! SEE PHOTOS
The REED COLLECTION is now on the website! More than 40 amazing photos of Pryors and their allied lines from Sumner County, TN and Farmersville, Collin County, TX. There are several tin-type photos from the 1860’s and 1870’s, lots of photos of the children and grandchildren of Allen L. Pryor. Ms. Reed is a gracious benefactor to the website… bringing history out of the family album for all of us to enjoy! These photos are now on Shutterfly.com and 300dpi (print quality images are available to anyone who wants to prints. If you are a UPromise.com member for college savings… Shutterfly contributes 7%. The TN Pryor website is not selling these photos, Shutterfly is a reasonable price source for photo printing and offers the ability to let everyone share in these photos. PLEASE… if you can identify anyone let us know!
Recently there have been terrific postings to the Pryor-RootsWeb mailing list. William Lindsey, a detailed and accurate researcher, is posting his findings on the line of Richard Pryor and Mourning Thompson. If you aren’t a member of the mailing list you are missing some great information! On the RootsWeb site you can read archived mail from the list all the way back to 1997! To join the list or read archived mail visit http://lists.rootsweb.com
The Missouri Pryors piqued my interest. Are Samuel, Emsley, and James Pryor of St. Joseph, MO related. Samuel is the the patriarch of the musical Pryors (and father of trombonist Arthur Pryor). Emsley served as a bugler in the Civil War leading one to hope that he may be part of this musical line, while both Emsley and James were employed as cistern and well diggers. All three families lived near eachother the Washington area of St. Joseph. All 3 were born prior to 1850 yet do not appear on a census until 1870. The Pension file didn’t hold any remarkable discoveries, but provided the names and birthdates of Emsley’s children.
A new addition to the website. On the home page you’ll now find a link to a blog. I’m testing this out to see if there is an interest in keeping up with Pryor research through the Blog. If any of the TN Pryor subscribers have their own genealogy Blog, let me know I will consider linking to it.
I just received a package of photos today from a distant Pryor cousin in Texas. How distant? She’s a grand-daughter of my great-grandmother’s sister. Yikes, that’s pretty distant! She was nice enough, and trusting enough, to send me a treasure trove of photos to scan. It’s wild! There are 6 to 8 tin photos of from the 1870’s… photos of the daughter’s of Allen L. Pryor of Gallatin, TN and some unidentified people. I’m scanning them and sending these back to her. My plan is to get them up on the TN Pryor website so we can see who can be identified. They’ve already made the rounds (as photocopies) between several Pryor researchers, so many of them are now tentatively idenitified. Several of the photos are of whole family groups around 1895, shortly before they left Sumner County for Farmersville, TX.
Let the identity game begin! Who are these folks?
(02/22/07) ANSWER… This is probably Ann Eliza Pryor born 1846 to Allen L. Pryor of Sumner County, TN. Her husband was Joshua Anderson Simmons. They lived in TN and in Collin County, TX, and later in Cotton County, OK.
Curiosity got the better of me. I ordered the Civil War Pension file for Emsley Pryor (despite the NARA having him indexed as Einsley). There are still several Pryor families in AR and MO whose lineage has not been uncovered. I had hoped to figure out if Emsley, James and Samuel Pryor (father of John Phillip Souza trombonist Arthur Pryor) were related. No such luck!Emsley Pryor applied for and received an invalid’s pension. He served in the Union Army as a bugler. Perhaps this bugling career means he was from the line of other musical Pryors! His physical description was aged 55, 6 feet, dark complexion, dark hair, dark eyes. He signed the pension application. Since he wasn’t on the 1850 nor the 1860 Census I’ve wondered if perhaps he was African-American.The pension file has the names and dates of births of his minor children at the time of his death on 8 Jul 1889.
Frank Stewart Pryor 7/23/1875
Frederick Rogers Pryor 5/23/1877
Pearl Self Pryor 9/7/1880
Ruby Hammond Pryor 12/23/1882