Like most genealogists, I love old photographs.  When visiting antique stores, the shelves of old photos always captivate me, and I’ve been known to “adopt” a “homeless person” (i.e., a photographed person!) or two when there’s sufficient information on the photo to provide clues to the identify of those captured on film.  On one such occasion I was rewarded to learn my “adoptees” were the grandchildren of President Rutherford B. Hayes, and was able to donate the photos to the museum in Ohio.  What was rather curious was how the pictures of the two little boys made their way from Cincinnati, Ohio, to a small antique store in Temecula, California!

Two weeks ago while antiquing I came upon the photo shown above.  The owner of the photo not only documented names of the individuals on the photos, but included their relationships on the back:

I was elated to find such detailed information on the back of this photograph, which provided a nice puzzle to solve!  That evening I sat down to Ancestry.com and Family Search, and and was able to determine maiden and married names for the women.  Clara (Sine) Bodine was the mother of Mary E. (Bodine) Niece Loudenberry, grandmother of Carrie (Niece) Cooper, and great-grandmother to Dorothy A. Cooper.  My hope was to find a descendant of Dorothy who may have an interest in the photo, but my efforts were unfruitful.  However, after a couple of Ancestry.com messages to descendants of Clara (Sine) Bodine, I was able to connect with her third great granddaughter (a descendant of Clara’s son, William) who now has her first digital copy of her ancestor, and will soon have the original photo delivered to her mailbox.

They say what goes around comes around.  I’m hoping someday a picture of my 4th great grandmother Betsey (Wasgatt) Stanwood will make it’s way to me!