Then and now: Fields Corner

My grandfather owned a delicatessen in a section of Dorchester (part of Boston), Massachusetts called Fields Corner from the early 1930's till his death in 1956. My grandmother and my dad ran it afterwards, but sold the deli a few years later.

With all of the times that Dad has talked about the deli and the years he spent working there, do you think it ever occurred to me to ask exactly where it was and if the building still exists?

I was fortunate enough to come across my grandparents in an old city directory the other night, and listed was also the Fields Corner Delicatessen, with address.

Google Earth, that simultaneously awesome and Orwellian-creepy program, enabled me to actually see the building where my grandfather's deli once was:

The deli was where Bargain City is now.

I searched online to see if there happened to be a photo of Fields Corner where you could see the deli when it was still the deli. I didn't find any, but I did find a cool picture of the area just up the street, taken on March 25, 1948. Then I used Google Earth to get as close to the same spot and the same angle as I could, and took a screenshot:

It's amazing to see that, while so much has changed, so much else has remained the same.

Incredible Civil War era photos

Through a great blog I came upon called A Genealogist's Sketchbook, I found a collection of amazing photos of Civil War soldiers.

These wonderful and unusual pictures were collected by the Liljenquist family and donated to the Library Of Congress. Most of the people depicted are not identified.

Viewing them, you can't help but be awed and touched. The photos chosen by Tom, Jason, Brandon, and Christian Liljenquist truly capture the subjects' humanity and strike an emotional chord in us 150 years later.

A little girl holds a photo of her fallen father

Thanks to the Liljenquists and to Dr. Nathaniel Lane Taylor, who posted about this on his aforementioned blog.

Hannah Specht Baker, my 3rd great-grandmother

Hannah Melissa (SPECHT) BAKER (1843-1924) was my mother's father's mother's mother's mother, and it turns out that she had some pretty interesting ancestry on both sides of her family.

She was born Hannah Melissa SPECHT on December 7, 1843 to Anthony Christopher and Margaret Sophia (THURBER) SPECHT in Barton, Digby, Nova Scotia, Canada. She married George Arthur BAKER on Christmas Eve, 1862 in Barton, and was living with her widowed daughter Jennie (BAKER) SANFORD in Barnard, Vermont by the time of the 1920 census. Hannah died there on July 2, 1924, of (according to her death record) chronic bronchitis.

Her grandpa was a Hessian soldier

Hannah's father's father was Ensign Johann Julius SPECHT (abt 1749- aft 1833), a soldier sent from Braunsweig (Brunswick) Germany to fight for the British during the American War for Independence.

A substantial number of troops fighting on the side of the British during this war were from Germany; they were either criminals, desperate men of some sort, or veteran soldiers, recruited and sent over by German princes. Because the majority of these troops came from the region of Hesse-Kassel, they are generally referred to as "Hessians"-- even if they hail from elsewhere in Germany, as my 5th great-grandfather did.

According to an secondary online source I've found:

Ensign Johann Julius Anton SPECHT arrived in 1776 on the ship Ost-Rust.

In 1777 Ensign Specht, under the command of General John Burgoyne, was wounded and captured at Bennington. He spent the next five or so years as a prisoner of war.

After his release, around 1783, he petitioned for and was granted British subjectship and land in Nova Scotia, at the head of St. Mary's Bay. He married Elizabeth (maiden name unknown) and settled down there.

Johann Julius Specht died in Nova Scotia sometime after 1833. He has quite a few descendants through his sons, and the Specht surname has several variations: Speicht, Speight, and Spates, to name a few.

Primary sources:

WILHELMY, JEAN-PIERRE. German Mercenaries in Canada. Beloeil, Quebec: Maison des Mots, 1985. 332p. Page: 263

"An Eyewitness Account of the American Revolution and New England Life", The Journal of J.F.Wasmus, German Company Surgeon, 1776-1783, translated by Helga Doblin.

The Mayflower connection

Through her mother, Hannah Specht Baker was also a descendant of the Mayflower Billington family.

John Billington, his wife Eleanor (maiden name unknown) came to America on the Mayflower with their two sons, John Jr. and Francis. The family did not have a good reputation; John Billington made enemies easily and was known as a "foul mouthed miscreant."

Ten years after arriving in Plymouth, he shot and killed fellow colonist John Newcomen during a heated argument over hunting rights. For this, Billington was hanged in September of 1630. He was about 50 years of age.

Line 1: Johann Julius SPECHT - Anthony Christopher SPECHT - Hannah SPECHT - Jessie BAKER - Estelle SIMMONDS - Henry HOWES - S. HOWES - Me.

Line 2: John BILLINGTON - Francis BILLINGTON - Mary BILLINGTON - Israel SABIN - Jeremiah SABIN - Sarah SABIN - Samuel THURBER - Margaret Sophia THURBER - Hannah SPECHT - Jessie BAKER - Estelle SIMMONDS - Henry HOWES - S. HOWES - 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.