Family History Find of the Day

A few days ago I had one of those lightning bolt moments: "look right here!" something said. And so I looked. As a result, I was able to unravel at least part of the mystery of the origins of an ancestor's adopted/foster daughter. It started with an obituary for Plumer Morton Woodworth, my great grandfather FJ Bird's first cousin. I hadn't seen that particular newspaper article before, even though I've done a fair amount of research on this family. (Chalk this find up to the exponential increase in digitized, indexed resources - particularly newspapers.) The obituary said he was survived by his (second) wife Marie, his sister Hattie Lockwood, and a foster daughter, Mrs. George Bustard of Honolulu. Two other published obituaries made no mention of Francis... The Honolulu Advertiser (Honolulu, Hawaii) · 20 Feb 1916, Sun · Page 17. Newspapers.com. In 1900, an adopted daughter "Rollen Woodworth" appears in the Federal Census in the household o...

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. ...