One of the many things I love about genealogy is discovering that an ancestor was more than a name tucked into a census record. Every once in a while, somebody steps right out of the family tree and leaves behind something amazingly tangible.

For my husband, one of these people is his 3X maternal great grandfather, William Coventry Wall (1810-1886) a well-known landscape painter whose work captured the scenery of Pittsburgh and Allegheny County in the nineteen century.

William was born in England in 1810 and came to Pennsylvania as a child with his family. He eventually became a noted landscape artist, and a biographical account of the family described him as one of Pittsburgh’s best-known artists in his speciality.

The connection to my husband comes through William’s daughter, Mary Eliza Wall (1836-1915), often known as Lydia. On August 14, 1856, she married Luman Ray Rogers (1831-1896). Together they became my husband’s 2X great grandparents. Their marriage notice appeared in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, quietly linking two branches of the family that would eventually lead to my husband generations later through his mother’s line.

And William Wall didn’t just leave descendants behind. He left paintings. And not just ‘paintings’, these were very famous works of art.

Years ago, I thought it would be pretty amazing to give my husband a reproduction of one of his ancestor’s landscapes for Christmas. I started looking around and found one I liked – and nearly fell over at the price.

Apparently, “But wait a minute … we’re family!?” does not qualify you for the family discount. Needless to say, there was no William Coventry Wall painting under the Christmas tree that year.

But there is something remarkable about knowing that when we look at one of his paintings today, we aren’t simply looking at the work of a nineteen-century Pennsylvania artist.

We’re looking at something created by my husband’s 3X great grandfather nearly two centuries ago – and that may be even better than owning one.