Family History Find of the Day

Thanks to a kind reader who stumbled across my Finding Emily Bird blog post and recognized her as the sister-in-law of her ancestor, I learned about Henry's divorce and where to find mention of it on Google Books. That provided clues that pointed to additional information which helped answer three of my four follow-on questions.

My Bird ancestors were early photography enthusiasts. As a result, I have access to hundreds of old photos, some dating back to the earliest days of photography. Happily, many are labeled with names, dates, and places.  In addition to family members, there are  photos of friends, neighbors, and colleagues.  I love sharing photos that someone else's family might be grateful to see! Tagging  photos  and documents to a deceased individual's profile in the FamilySearch Family Tree will trigger a notification to relatives of that individual (as determined by connections in the shared Family Tree), alerting them to the photo's presence when they log in.  This photo of Birds and friends/colleagues from MT Bird album #12 was taken in July 1948. Back row, L to R are Kenneth Madsen,  Fred and Elizabeth Knobel, my grandparents MT and Florence Bird, and David Madsen.  In front are Luna Brite, wife of Duncan Brite, and Mary Collins Madsen.  (Was Duncan B...

I was finally able to identify another photo from the Warrenville Historical Society  this evening. The mystery man with the long beard turns out to be Plumer Morton Woodworth, eldest child of Dr. Jacob and Ellen Douglas Bird Woodworth. The clue came from a photo of Dr. Woodworth in later life, published in  A History of the City of Chicago: Its Men and Institutions. Biographical Sketches of Leading Citizens  (p. 419) and available digitally at Google Books. Take a close look at the two photos.  Notice the hairline, the shape and set of the eyes, the nose, the ears.  I'm comfortable with saying that the unlabeled photo is definitely Plumer Morton Woodworth. This conclusion also fits with the photo's placement in the album. (It follows individual photos of Jacob Woodworth and Ellen D. Bird Woodworth.) Dr. Plumer Morton Woodworth about 1878 Dr. Plumer Morton Woodworth about 1900 Like his father, Plumer Woodworth was a doctor. ...

"New Hampshire, Birth Records, Early to 1900," index and images, FamilySearch.org, GSU Film #1001056: accessed 5 June 2012. Daniel Warren 1780-1866 My 4 th great grandfather Daniel Warren was an early settler of the town of Warrenville (DuPage county), Illinois near Chicago. In fact, the town was named for the Warren family.  Daniel was born in Massachusetts, but I discovered a birth record for him in the New Hampshire Birth Records collection at FamilySearch.org .   Oddly enough, the New Hampshire birth record gave his birthplace as Townsend, Massachusetts.  Why would a New Hampshire birth record list a Massachusetts town as a place of birth?  I read what I could about the database, then read more about New Hampshire and Massachusetts state boundaries, and still couldn’t come up with a reasonable explanation. Then I discovered the Town Records of Hancock, New Hampshire in a small collection of free records at Fold3.com (which used to be...