George Garner Wescott (1836-1916) (52 Ancestors 2020 Week 16) Theme: "Air"

Conjuring an ancestor's photo out of thin air - that's my latest genealogical superpower!

I've written about my great great grandfather George Garner Wescott a couple of times previously: once in relation to the 1890 Population Schedule for Union Veterans of the American Civil War and once regarding his wife Sarah Catherine Bullen and their family photo which was my "favourite photo", both written as part of the 2015 "52 Ancestors" project.

Here's the thing about George Garner Wescott: we in the extended family have not been able to locate a single photograph of him.

In desperation, many family members have added the Civil War photograph of a George Wescott in the hope that he is our man. I do not believe that to be the case. When I first located that photograph online for a Civil War site many many years ago, I am quite sure it was identified with a different middle initial (T.?) and different military unit to that of our George Garner Wescott. (Why didn't I record the source for this and more detail, you well might ask?) Secondly, George didn't enlist as "George" but under his middle name of "Garner". This created all sorts of problems when he and then his widow were making pension applications decades later. Unfortunately, I don't believe this handsome young man to be our George Garner Wescott, but one of the many other Wescotts who served in the Civil War.

George Wescott - probably NOT George Garner Wescott

George lived until 1916, but he does not appear in the following Wescott family photograph taken at his home about 1901. As his wife Sarah does not appear in it either, perhaps they were just intending to record their descendants in this image.

George's children with their families - my grandmother Idella Edwards is far left
in front of her mother Mary Jane Wescott Edwards (holding baby Marion Edwards)
Neither George G. nor Sarah appear in this photograph

In 2015 my favourite photo as part of the "52 Ancestors" project was the one from 1895, shown below.

Wescott Family 1895

 I have looked at this picture so often over the years because the posing in front of the Wescott home intrigues me. We have the 8 children of George and Sarah posed more formally on chairs and standing in the foreground and then standing further back on the right side of the picture is Sarah (the middle woman) surrounded by some of the daughters-in-law and grandchildren. I speculated at the time that George's absence could perhaps be explained if he was an amateur photographer who took the picture. I no longer believe that to have been the case.

While recently going through some photographs that had belonged to my Uncle Bob, I took an extra minute to read what was written on the reverse of his copy of this 1895 picture. I do not know who had identified the people in the picture, but whoever it was had made the notation:  "Captain George Wescott, seated on step far left". SAY WHAT???? Grabbing my magnifying glass, I examined the picture more closely and there he was, almost off the picture at the far left in the background. Trouble is: to the best of my knowledge, George was never a "Captain". I checked my database to see if perhaps there was another George Wescott who might have been a Captain and who might be closely enough related to make an appearance in this immediate family photograph; I could find none. Perhaps the person who identified him as a Captain was giving him an honorific title for his service in the Civil War. I immediately put my theory out to other members of the extended family. No one else had ever noticed the man on the left; in some copies of the photograph, he had been cropped right out of the picture.

One theory had been put forward by a descendant and keen family historian Frank Wicker who had noticed this person. His suggestion was that perhaps he was George Bernard Wescott, a man who indeed had a very distinguished military history. The problem with that idea is that George Bernard was born in 1887 and would have been just a child at the time of this picture. Although the image is not clear, the man in the photograph (see enlarged segment below) is almost certainly not a child!

Enlarged segment of 1895 photo showing the man seated on far left behind George and Sarah's adult children

(Scroll  back up to the full image and you will see him almost falling off the left side of the picture.)

George's description from his Civil War pension file indicates that when he signed up he was 5 feet 5 inches tall, blue eyed, black haired. In the early 1890s his pension application and medical report indicated he weighed just 133 pounds and was suffering from rheumatism and kidney trouble. At the time of the 1895 photograph, he would have been 59 years old. Perhaps it's wishful thinking, but I see a strong similarity between the mystery man on the left and the son appearing in the above picture.

Occam's Razor would have us pick the simplest solution to the puzzle. If one person who SHOULD be in the photograph is otherwise missing, this is most likely that person. I can see how this ailing veteran might wish to be seated for a lengthy photography session. He most likely would not want to be standing with the women and children to the one side and was probably quite happy to find a step to rest on while still being part of the scene. It's just too bad that he almost completely disappears.

George Garner Wescott, I think we've finally found a photo of you!

(Comments are welcome. But I will say this before someone else does: Far from having a superpower of conjuring up a picture out of thin air, one might well say I spent years being just plain unobservant.)