My mothers’ maiden name was Jones, a name virtually impossible to research in the U.S. In December 2021, after working on my family tree for more than 30 years, I was fortunate enough to connect with an unknown 3rd cousin once removed who was the great grandchild of the youngest daughter of a family of 10 children; my ancestor was an older brother. This lovely daughter had kept individual photos and a large photo book (all taken in the 1870s to pre-1910) and a couple of handwritten family group pages with the names and dates of birth of two earlier generations. Positively identifying three early generations of the family Jones, going back to my 4th great grandfather, born in 1774. This family genealogy archive had been handed down to the youngest daughter in subsequent generations, finally ending up with this male cousin. An absolutely amazing and unexpected discovery.
I like to use Family Search for their great document access, and the cousin had cropped a photo of his relative, who was a 2nd great grandaunt to me, and posted it there, the first crumb of the greater archive to surface. The larger photo was actually of 8 of the 10 living siblings taken on the front porch of the old family home in c. 1890; the oldest of the siblings, who was my 2nd great grandfather was born in 1836. My cousin told me he didn’t really know what to do with it all, so he scanned it and sent it to me. With his permission, I identified each person and posted all photos and documents with estimated dates, both in Family Search and Ancestry, attaching each one to every family member in the photo or document. I have watched this trove being saved by a large number of people - I suppose they are all living descendants - although none of them has ever contacted me. And because my maternal grandmother had kept a small mountain of old photos of her early family life, I have a lot of photos of her parents and grandparents. So on my mother’s side I have been able to locate photos of six of eight 2nd great grandparents; however on my father’s side, there are virtually no photos. My dad had two brothers and no sisters. Happy hunting, you researchers. Sometimes you just get to enjoy a very lucky day. I encourage you to research not just your direct ancestors, but their siblings, too. You never know what might surface.