Jonathan Johnson was born a slave, probably in Kentucky, the birthplace listed in the 1870 census. His owner was Jacob Omer of Jeffersontown, Kentucky, my ancestor. There is a written family account that tells how Jonathan was a playmate of Jacob's children. This lovely photograph of Jonathan's handsome family, probably taken about 1877, has been handed down the OMER line, my mother's line, to me. Set in a beautiful black carved frame, it always hung on the wall in each Omer household that inherited it in turn. Jacob Omer (there were several men by this name in the large Omer clan) was reputed to be a hard master, and one of his sons, my direct ancestor, left Kentucky to settle in Illinois because he could no longer abide living in a slave state. The records show that Jonathan remained in contact with another son of Jacob's, George W. Omer, and that George settled Jonathan's will when he died in Louisville, Kentucky in the early twentieth century.

In the photo, Jonathan Johnson is with his wife and six children, whose names can be assigned, based on the Jefferson County, Kentucky 1870 census for Jeffersontown, by their cited ages, and their heights in the photo, probably as follows, left to right: Kate, William, Isabel, Marcus, Eliza, and George. Jonathan and his wife, Elizabeth, farmed in Jefferson County on land given to him by the Omer family after the Civil War was over, as the story goes, and the census listing bolsters that account. The children in the photo are wearing dresses that look like they were made, probably by Elizabeth, from the same bolt of fabric. Efforts to trace Jonathan's descendants past 1910 have not yet been successful.