(Belated) Saturday night genealogy fun: Two degrees of separation

Randy Seaver came up with a fun challenge, which Elizabeth Handler has taken up: "Using your ancestral lines, how far back in time can you go with two degrees of separation? That means 'you knew an ancestor, who knew another ancestor.' When was that second ancestor born?"

I read this late last night, and as I climbed into bed to go to sleep, I racked my brain.

Three of my four grandparents were living when I was born; my paternal grandfather had died almost twenty years before I was born, and my maternal grandfather had not been in my mother's life since she was in high school. So I only ever met my grandmothers.

My maternal grandmother, Dorothy PALMER, who actually lived with my family when she was dying of lung cancer, was born in 1918. Her father's father George Bailey PALMER was born in 1850 and died on 15 Dec 1926. He almost certainly knew my grandmother, since they lived in the same county. She would presumably have remembered him, being that she was eight years old when he died.

My great-grandfather, Horace William HOWES, was alive when I was born, but since we never met, it doesn't count...

It seems that I can only back to a great-great grandparent with two degrees of separation. Elizabeth can go back to a third !

Ancestral line: George Bailey PALMER (1850-1926) > Frank Bailey PALMER (1888- 1958) > Dorothy Elizabeth PALMER (1918-1984) > S. HOWES (1937-1999) > Me.

Another great records resource: FamilySearch

I've spent the past month or so going back in my family tree trying to verify that the lines are correct-- that I haven't accidentally followed the wrong family or anything. That happens a lot when you rely on some random person's personal genealogy information.

You need to have records and sources as evidence that your tree-- and the people in it-- are correct.

To that purpose, I've been trying to hunt down records of my ancestors from New Hampshire. They're proving far more difficult to track down than my Massachusetts ones, who have excellent and thorough records dating back to the 1600's. New Hampshire historical vital records, on the other hand, are not easy to find, at least not online.

Thankfully, I stumbled upon a great FREE database (I'm all about "free") called FamilySearch.

Here I was able to access records for, among others, my great-great grandfather, George Bailey Palmer, his wife and my great-great grandmother Mary (Purinton) Palmer, and her father Isaiah F. Purinton.

Above is a picture of a picture of Mary Purinton Palmer (the actual photo is unfortunately lost-- temporarily, I'm hoping). On the back of this was written, "Mary Olivia Palmer, 1851-1898. Wife of George Bailey Palmer and mother of George W. and Frank Bailey Palmer. 1926." It's only thanks to this inscription that I know who this was and had enough information to trace her lines back.

Death records, which seem to be the most plentiful in this database, give all kinds of information: exact birth date and birth place, names of parents (often including the mother's maiden name), death date and death place, cause of death, and burial place.

I found that, for birth records, these old records sometimes list the person's age at death instead of an actual birthdate: for example, Mary Purinton Palmer was "46 years, 8 months, and 4 days" old at the time of her death, which was July 13, 1898. It just took a bit of math to figure out that she was born on November 9, 1851.

I also discovered that she died of cancer, though the record didn't specify what type. More interestingly, her father Isaiah (1818- 1890) is listed as having died of "cholera morbus" at the age of 71.

According to Wikipedia, "cholera morbus" could refer to either actual cholera or any general form of gastroenteritis.

A neat thing about some of these genealogical databases is that you can see and download the actual documents, not just see secondhand the information in them.

This database isn't just for New Hampshire, by the way, but appears to have records from all over the world.

"George Palmer's boy"

Something very interesting...

Found a neat site called ancientfaces.com, at which people can upload old photos and search through them by surname.

I looked under "Palmer", which was my maternal grandmother's maiden name. I know it's a very common name, and wasn't surprised to find that the many uploaded pictures I found were not of my family.

But one caught my attention. The woman who uploaded it (back in 2001), said that it was simply labeled (on the back of the photo, I assume) as "George Palmer's boy." The photo shows a very handsome blond boy, about five years old, and looks to have been taken in the 1880's or 1890's.

My great-great grandfather's name was George Palmer. Considering what a common name this must be, I would never assume that the George Palmer whose son is depicted in this picture was my great-great grandfather.

Except that this boy bears an uncannily strong resemblance to my mother-- same eyes, same chin, same face shape:

Could this young boy be my great-grandfather or his brother?

I tried to contact the lady who uploaded this photo for more information, but have gotten no response.

What I'd like to find out is, where did she find the photo? If it originated in New Hampshire, for example, that would suggest that my instincts might be correct.

However, this boy's clothes look expensive to me, meaning that his family was probably well-to-do; my Palmers were, to my knowledge, farmers and laborers.

My great-grandfather, Frank Palmer, was born in 1888, so he would have been around this age in 1893. Maybe someone who knows more than I do about 19th century fashions could pinpoint more accurately when this photo was taken.