Aunt Dorothy Jean Comes Through

I can’t believe it. I didn’t think that any photographs of my great-grandparents (Goldie’s parents) existed, but then these two, over 140 years old, turn up courtesy of my aunt Dorothy Jean. The photos, studio portraits of Henry Graham Parker and Emily Robinson McMurray, are said to have been taken around the time of their wedding. Having decided to wed prior to Henry leaving to serve in the civil war, they were married immediately upon his return, on August 25, 1865.
These photos add nothing to the nuts-and-bolts of the family tree, but there’s an undeniable significance to connecting a face with a name. It makes the people come alive. Remember my earlier post about the father learning of his daughter’s death from a Ouija board? This is that man, Henry Graham Parker.
One bothersome aspect of the photos are the dates notated on the back, indicating their date of marriage as August 25, 1865. This contrasts to the data contained in the family outline, which gave the date as October 25 of the same year. That’s something I’ll need to quiz Dorothy Jean about. For now I’m still having trouble getting very far beyond Henry Parker on the family tree, and the marriage date doesn’t provide any clues regardless the date used. The Guernsey County, Ohio census from 1860 reveals a Henry G. Parker age 20, and that fits right in with the data on the family outline, which indicates his being born in Oct. of 1940. His father is shown as William Parker, born in England. It is difficult to read William’s age on the census, but it appears to be either 45 or 47. So I’ve found the William Parker reference in the 1860 census, but that’s where I’m stuck. I don’t know where in England he came from and I don’t know when he died, but logic says it would have been in Ohio. I haven’t found any further clues on ancestry.com, but I’m far from mastering the search techniques that can be used on the site.
The quest for Henry G’s lineage may seem discouraging, but searches for Emily R. McMurray reveal nothing at all. It’s been said that Emily’s mother was a Robinson, and related to the “Robinson Giants”. Also called the Robinson Family, the Robinson Giants were a family of, you guessed it, really tall folk. I’ve confirmed that such a family existed, and that they traveled with Barnum & Bailey, but I’ve been unable to make a genealogical connection with them… yet.