Where Was William's Farm While in Wysox?

With a little super-sleuthing, I found the spot where I think the young Jennings Family lived before they came to Mehoopany.

William and his family are listed on the 1860 census as living with his in-laws, Henry Strope, Jr. and Frances Keeler. Two years earlier -- luckily --  a map was published showing the location of property owned by the Strope Family. The highlighted circle in the center marks the spot:

It didn't take too much longer to overlay the 1858 map and a modern map, and here's what I found:

From Google Maps, 2016

This is the intersection of Hillside Drive and Route 187 in Wysox, PA. I'll make sure to drop by and have a look the next time I'm there!

Here's the link for the source of the original Wysox map: 1858 Wysox Map

A Great Excitement, Indeed!

"A great excitement is constantly kept up at Mehoopany, PA, on account of the low prices at Wm Jennings' store opposite Benders Hotel,where dry goods, groceries, hardware, hats and caps, boots and shoes, and everything usually kept in country stores are sold at a less advance on first cost than at any other place in the county.

Connected with his store is a tailor shop, with an extensive stock of clothes, cassimeres, vestings, trimmings, etc. and etc.

Garments cut and made in the latest styles at prices that defy competition, prices for cutting full suit, $.80. Perfect fits warranted in all cases, if properly made up. Call and be convinced, Wm. Jennings."

North Branch Democrat (newspaper)

Mehoopany, December 7, 1865.

A 3D Look at the Past, Part 2

The First Three Fathers

Maybe a real picture of my great grandfather Charles will turn up someday --  but for now, I invented one. The images (above) were made with FaceGen Modeler and FaceGen Artist. There's more detail about how they were created in my earlier post. Charles, however, had to be virtually created from scratch.

Just how to create Charles when no photo is available? By melding images of his mom and dad, of course. An image of his dad was simple, sort of. I created the image of William by processing an image taken from an engraving! But, an image of his mom, Harriet Strope (who had Dutch ancestry), maybe lost to history. I had to resort to doing a Google Images search for "average Dutch female face," which yielded this...

Your typical Mehoopany innkeeper's wife, right? So, William + Dutch Beauty Queen = Charles? But, of course! I shifted the age of the resulting image to 60 years of age and made it a tad more masculine, and there you have it! Instant ancestor.

Now, once I get the hang of full-body 3D modeling I'll be posting a CG six generational reunion portrait!

Obviously, this is more for fun than anything else, but I hope you enjoy my light-hearted ancestral forensic adventure.  Thanks again to FaceGen (http://facegen.com), and for the image of my ideal 3rd great-grandmother, The Postnational Monitor's article, "World of Averages: Europe" (https://pmsol3.wordpress.com/2011/04/07/world-of-averages-europeave/)

A 3D Look at the Past

Welcome TWITTER Followers! This is the story so far:

I'm always looking for ways to better connect with my family's story; invariably, technology has provided more and more ways to do so. However, seldom has it provided ways as startling as this...

My son introduced me to a program called FaceGen, which enables the user to create a 3D portrait out of 2D photos. I fooled around with it for a couple days and found the results amazing. Naturally, I subjected all my family to endure a photo session which was as fun for them as getting their mug shots taken. Nevertheless, they humored me and I got some pretty outstanding models made of them.

FaceGen does not recommend using portraits done as drawings, but I had to try to see how well it would work with the photo of William's engraving, which appears at the top of this blog. I followed the directions for selecting key areas of the face for the program to use in the creation of the model, and then I hit go. About five minutes later, FaceGen delivered this:

FaceGen model of my 3rd great-grandfather, William Jennings (1821-1872)

Corey Jennings (1878-1933), my grandfather.

The original photo of Corey

Pretty stunning! It did a couple interesting things, like not rendering his beard (which I'm cool with), as well as making him appear a little younger than I thought it would. Nevertheless, to see the portrait of my 3rd great-grandfather in a manner that he would never have imagined is pretty startling. What's even eerier, my wife saw it and said, "Who is that? I know him!" She couldn't believe it when I told her!

I also tried the same thing with the best photo of my grandfather, Corey. Again, despite the poor quality of the photo, the result is awesome! Corey died in 1933 (needless to say, I never met him), but at certain angles he bears a resemblance to my father -- his son!


My goal is to someday create an entire family portrait using FaceGen -- all six generations of Jennings Men, which would include my son and myself. Now, that will be amazing!

Look for FaceGen HERE. 

I'm Coming to Get You, Paul Bishop Jennings!

I did it. Just now. Bought a DNA kit, . Hoping that 2016 will be the year I'll solve one of the family's most puzzling genealogy questions...well, as far as I'm concerned: How were Paul Bishop Jennings and William Jennings related?

As far as the Jennings research, there's an organization based in Bath, England that will look into records for you for a small fee. My strategy will be to do that, and also to contact hits that I get through the DNA test. My other strategy involves finding a descendant of the guy I suspect was William's uncle (Paul Bishop Jennings) and hope that they have had the DNA test done as well.

Wish me luck? And William, if you're out there, I could use a hand here!

Oh, Those Gaylord Kids!

This photo provides another piece of the JENNINGS HOUSE story, albeit a small piece. What attracted me to the postcard is that I recognized the architectural features as belonging to my great-great grandfather's hotel, the Jennings House.

I'm not sure when the hotel passed into the hands of the Gaylord Family, but I think it had to have happened shortly after William Jennings died in 1871. The hotel stood for around 40 years until it was destroyed by fire in 1910.

I assume this postcard -- dated 1906 -- show the Gaylord children. At this point, I'm not a subscriber to that ancestry website I have a love/hate relationship with -- so I can't add any names to the faces. However, from another source I find this information:

Jennie C. Gaylord b. Feb. 22, 1897 Mehoopany, Pa.

Helen Gaylord b. Sept. 9, 1903 Mehoopany, Pa.

Roy Gaylord b. Dec. 23, 1899 Mehoopany, Pa.

Jennie, Helen & Roy are the children of John W. & Grace (Custer) Gaylord.

Could they be the children on the postcard? Most likely. I also discovered a Jennings on the source page, a Catherine Jennings, but my genealogy chops are rusty so I'll have to get back to you on this. In any case, I'm thrilled to have a close up of the hotel in the latter days, and a peek inside the people that knew it.

A Place in Time

Somebody asked if I knew where the Jennings House was located; fortunately, I know exactly where it was, within a couple feet of the actual spot. Using Sketchup's export function, I flew it out into Google Earth -- giving us a look at where the hotel was located using imaging of the surroundings as it looks today.

While the model isn't complete (and correct -- the roof is off lacking some crucial dimensions), this is, too date, the best visualizations of a building that time forgot. Almost.