Pappy Baby

This week I’m taking you way, way back. Not just back to the 20th century, but to the 19th. This photo was taken over 120 years ago. It’s not quite as old as the some of the other photos that I’ve posted on here, but it is older than most. I’m not really sure where it comes from. It’s either from the Tin Can Collection or the Secret Collection. It is definitely not from the Fort Knox or A.J. collections. Those are the names that my Landry cousins have come up for the various collections that have been discovered or revealed.

Whatever collection it came from, it is definitely a treasure. It is a photo of my father’s father Robert Joseph Landry, Sr. He was born on January 9, 1893, in Westlake, Louisiana. He was the youngest of 10 children born to Simon Alcide Joseph Landry and Marie Celeste Leveque Landry. The family was from the West Baton Rouge Parish, but resettled in the Lake Charles area some time during the 1880s.  I’m guessing that this photo was taken in is his first year of life, so some time in 1893.

I actually just had a snapshot of the photo to work with, but I’m not sure if a scan would improve the quality of the resulting photo.  It looks like the original is faded and monotone, but not every old photo is going to be crisp with great contrast.  I’m just glad to have a photo of Pee Paw when he was just a petite babe.

The other thing I was thinking about when I selected this photo was the family he was born into.  Cousins marrying cousins.  But I was curious about those cousins and when they lived and died.  Last week I talked about the death of the last of my maternal grandmother’s first cousins from her Phenice side.  There is actually still a surviving first cousin from her Keys side.  When I looked a Pee Paw’s first cousins, there haven’t been any around for fifty years or so.  In fact, from the Landry side of the family my dad doesn’t have any surviving first cousins.  He does have some first cousins from the Patureau side of the family.

Of course, with cousins marrying cousins, you can’t really distinguish one side from the other very easily.  This makes things particularly confusing when dealing with DNA.  I’ve been thinking about checking with my dad’s siblings to see if they would be willing to do a DNA test.  Even if I’m confused now about the DNA sources from an entwined family tree, one day I may be able to figure something out.  It’s always best to DNA test the oldest generation.

A few of us have already taken some DNA tests and I was surprised with the results.  First cousin Kenny and I share less DNA than most first cousins.  Yet first cousin Scott’s daughter and son have tested and I share more with them than I do with Kenny. What’s up with that?  Did daddy and aunt Frances share a lot more in common than most siblings?  Only a DNA test would tell.