I came across this photo several years ago when I was browsing through a copy of a book called "Bon Homme County [South Dakota] History" (Hoover Herbert T, Carol Goss Hoover, Dottee Blaha, and Bon Homme County Historical Society. 1994. Bon Homme County History. Tyndall SD, Vermillion SD: Bon Homme County Historical Society ; H.T. Hoover.)
I knew I had ancestors in that county and I was hoping to find a mention of them. I found something even better--a photo of them!
The caption said something like "William Ogden visiting his grandparents John and Isabella Gibbon outside their sod house near Scotland, SD." (I don't have a copy of the exact wording, but that's pretty close.) I thought "Hey! I know those people!" A genealogy happy dance ensued.
William Fredrick Ogden (1871-1951) was my mom's paternal grandfather. (My mapapa using my shorthand notation. See the "Ma and Pa" tab on this blog.) He is visiting his maternal grandparents (my 3xgreat-grandparents) John Gibbon (1803-1899) and Isabella Davidson (1811-1890). These are my mapapamapa and mapapamasma. The "s" in there is because Isabella was John's second wife--a step-mother to my 2xgreat-grandmother Hannah Gibbon (1837-1927), who married James Robert Ogden (1836-1910).
My Gibbon line were originally from Aberdeenshire in Scotland. They went first to Ontario, Canada in 1835. Some time in the 1870s they made their way south to the Dakota Territory where they settled in Bon Homme County outside of the town of--wait for it--Scotland.
The quality of the photo is not very good, but who cares? I have a photo of my ancestors from around 1880 and that is truly wonderful.
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