As part of my ancestry investigations I often browse eBay for vintage family-specific treasures using keywords such as surnames and locations. Sometimes I have the incredible luck of discovering a photo for a distant ancestor such as this one for Melinda “Minnie” Manly (1833-1916) who, according to Ancestry.com, is my “1X cousin, 5 generations removed”.

Minnie is the daughter of Adin Manly, my 4X great grandfather, Howard Manly’s brother. The brothers, Adin and Howard, were the two Manly ancestors of my direct line who left Massachusetts and settled in Monroe County, New York in the early 1800s.

On thing that was special about the photograph I found of Minnie is that she very clearly has what my cousins and I lovingly refer to as the ‘Manley nose’. It is very prominent in our line. It’s how we all know we’re Manley’s.

Minnie’s father, Adin Manly (1793-1867) also has this distinct feature as evidenced by the photo I discovered for him in a book at the Ft. Wayne library a few years ago.

Flash forward to my paternal grandfather, Charles Judson Manley (1899-1974) in the photo below and it’s obvious at a glance they are related, even though their births were separated by four generations and over 100 years.

You can also see ‘That Nose’ in my grandfather’s paternal uncle, Fred Manley (1873-1947).

When I was growing up, especially as a girl, I was sometimes dismayed by my unique nose. However, after years of researching my family and seeing them physically, some for the very first time, I have a much more evolved viewpoint. I am now weirdly proud of how I share something so obvious in ‘that look’ with all these ancestors and how perhaps that one feature, more than anything, shows us that we are kin. Beyond all the paperwork, census records and thousands of hours of digging into their lives, we look alike, generation after generation. I find that deeply satisfying.

Over the generations the surname ‘Manley’ in my line (direct and indirect) has been recorded with the ‘E’ and often without the ‘E’ as ‘Manly’. The headstone for my 3X great grandfather, James Manley, is engraved ‘Manley’. His first wife, buried right next to him is engraved ‘Manly’. Husband and wife used it both ways. As you can imagine researching newspaper archives using the ‘Manly’ spelling often returns a myriad of unrelated results to my people. Therefore, you will see me use the surname most often as ‘Manley’ which is how my generation spelled it (my maiden name). It is not in error, merely for the sake of convenience.