Newly Uncovered Buried Treasure: Precious Family Photos

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For the longest time, I had been very upset that I wasn't left much in the way of original photos of my paternal grandfather's family line. It seemed every other family member from that line of the family had all kinds of scrapbooks, letters, and original portraits. The fact that I never knew my paternal grandfather (he died before I was born) compounded my agitation. Luckily, that side of my family was pretty well known in New Orleans due to a number of very successful business ventures there and I was able to obtain a handful of things from E-Bay, which I still make a valiant effort to snatch up every chance I get. This past week, my parents were cleaning out the office in their house, and found not only a binder of my grandmother's newspaper clippings that I hadn't seen in years, but also a box that appeared to contain family photos. Because I am the resident genealogy archivist of the family, they gave me the both. I opened the box and... HOLY GRAIL! All of it was my father's family, with the vast majority of it being from my paternal grandfather's side. There were pictures of my great-great-great grandparents, great-great grandparents, and even a photo of my great-grandfather as an infant, along with a handful of photos from my grandfather's young years. Some of the photos were of people I did not recognize, but perhaps my extended family could help there. A bunch of newspaper clippings, and even a few letters were also in the box. Most of them pertained to my family's hotel in New Orleans, which I have posted about here several times. I immediately purchased a few scrapbooks on Amazon to put them in, and it has worked extremely well, and I am very excited and happy with it. Unfortunately, I put all the items into the scrapbooks before I could photograph them all spread out, but I am posting some photos of my great-grandfather -- the first being the aforementioned photo of his infancy, and the second, from early childhood.