July 25

 MEMORIAL...

Leona Canzada Bullard Hamby Cross died 1961, age 81

I have run across a lot of family photographs of people that are unknown to me. I try to research and figure out exactly how they are related. Sometimes I succeed, and sometimes I don't. This photo is about 2 inches square, glued to a piece of cardboard, and there are a few others done the same way, with names written on the back. 

The name Hamby doesn't occur anywhere else in our family records, so I honestly don't even remember how I managed to start looking for this lady. But I finally was able to trace her to the Bullard family. And from the Bullard family to the Tamsett family. The Bullards and the Tamsetts are laced into the Arnold/Carter family in several different ways. (I just find this stuff fascinating. Maybe not everyone would enjoy this kind of detective work, but I love it. If you don't enjoy it, you should probably stop reading right here, 'cause this is gonna get twisted.)

Leona Hamby was the daughter of George Bullard and his first wife Josephine Tamsett.

This is not one of our family photos, but one I found on the Find-A-Grave website. This is George Bullard and Josephine Tamsett Bullard with their daughter Leona Canzada Bullard. Leona married William Limuel Phalamil Hamby. I had some pictures of a boy named Mell Hamby. Turns out he was Leona's son.

And then there are these...

Photos: Albert Tamsett, Tessie Bullard, Euna Hamby

These pictures are also tiny, glued to cardboard, with names written on the back. But who in the world are they? Well, turns out they are all related to one another, and somehow related to our family. You see, George Bullard and his sister Peggy are the people who raised my great-great-grandfather John Henry Arnold. He was their nephew -- the son of their sister Emma Bullard, whose husband (somebody Arnold) had left her. That's how the Bullards became part of the family. After George and Peggy got John Henry raised, they both married. Twice. George married Josephine Tamsett. You may remember the name Tamsett from some other posts. George Arnold married Jessie Tamsett, and John Carter married her sister Amy Tamsett. Jessie and Amy were the daughters of Sarah Tamsett -- the midwife who delivered my grandmother Cleffie Hicks Burford. Sarah was married to Jackson Tamsett, and Jackson had a sister named Josephine, and that's who married George Bullard. Leona Hamby is their daughter. 

Mell Hamby was Leona's son. I still don't know for sure who Euna Hamby is. Eventually, I found out that Albert Tamsett was a brother to Aunt Jessie and Aunt Amy.

You with me so far? 

Well, George Bullard had a second wife. (I don't know what happened to Josephine. I guess she died.) Her name was Mary Alice Moorehead Robinson. She had two sons by her first husband, and then she and George had two daughters -- Tessie and Georgia Alice.

Photo: George and Mary Bullard, Levi and Herbert Robinson, Tessie Bullard. (And doll...?) 

Georgia Alice was born in 1912, which I assume would be after this picture was taken.

Well, there's more, but I think I'll stop here. My brain hurts.