Tucson is in the midst of a much needed thunderstorm that is dropping lots of rain! Finally! Although the highs have only been in the 90s, it’s been very humid without a drop for over a week. Monsoon season is winding down this week and, of course, we are hoping we get a couple more rainfalls.

It’s also the weekend and time for Saturday Night Genealogy Fun with Randy Seaver.

Here is this week’s challenge:

1)  Serendipity! What happened when you went looking for an ancestor or a genealogical record and were pleasantly surprised to find someone else or something else you didn’t expect while you were doing that search?

2)  Please share an instance when you had a serendipitous experience.

I love this challenge because it so happens I’ve been working on ancestor life sketches in my mom’s Adams line.

One of the collections I’ve been reviewing is that of my “unknown” photos.

I think I might have figured out one of them, which would be my serendipitous experience.

Here is one of my more interesting unknowns:

Here we have two boys who likely were participants in a church, school or community event with costumes. I have no idea bout the boy on the left, likely just a friend.

There was, of course, some reason why a photo was taken or kept and this looks exactly like a picture that a mother would want as a souvenir.

The boy on the right has always seemed familiar to me. Here is just his face cropped:

Look at the shape of the face, his eyes, the eyebrow slant, the straight nose with the nostril placement, his lips and, finally, his ears.

This photo dates from c1885. [My Charles was born in 1877, so 8 years old in 1885.]

Now look at this photo from c1915:

The bottom photo is my great grandfather, Charles Edwin Adams. He would have been in his mid 30s in this photo (born January 1877).

I think the boy in the photo is Charles.

What do you think? I think revisiting unknown photos can bring on new theories and I might have solved this mystery.

I definitely wasn’t expecting to maybe identify an unknown AND I think I figured out another photo, too. Serendipity!

Thanks, Randy, once again, for a fun topic.

Welcome to September! The Tucson heat has broken and we finally have days with highs only in the 90s. The weather is wonderful!!!

This is also the first weekend of the month and it’s time for Randy Seaver’s weekly Saturday Night Genealogy Fun challenge.

1)  How do you use Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools to help you understand the lives, history, and geography associated with your family and your ancestors, that aid your genealogy and family history research?  

My answer isn’t going to be very long. I rarely use AI. If I do, it’s to create a research locality guide to identify resources that I might easily miss on my own when researching a less familiar-to-me area.

Also, I occasionally ask AI a question about a history detail I might come across when researching.

Aside from those uses, I only secondarily access AI when it’s operating behind the scenes as with full-text search and indexed records.

That pretty much sums it up for me!

Thank you, Randy, as always, for fun SNGF topics.

We’re on the cusp of September, with a definite lack of monsoon rain here in Tucson, but high temperatures – about 105 every day. It’s great for lounging in the pool, but not for much of anything else!

The bright side of the weekend is Randy Seaver’s weekly Saturday Night Genealogy Fun challenge.

1)  Every historical person has major events, milestones and “turning points” in their life, from birth through death and even beyond.  These events, milestones and turning points can be the basis for family stories of the historical person.

2)  Please share one of those events in your own life, or the life of one of your ancestors. 

I was stumped for a minute, but then realized that several of my ancestors had, at the same time, experienced a huge life turning point.

These ancestors – John Adams & family, James Astle & family, Benjamin Burt & family, Philip Crouse, Jonathan Parker & family and Walter Stewart – were all on the losing side of the American Revolution and all made the decision to leave for Nova Scotia in the fall of 1783.

They were Tories, soon to be known as United Empire Loyalists and all but Phillip Crouse and Walter Stewart had families with them. All torn from the only homes they had ever known and who set off to live in raw wilderness.

Benjamin Burt was dead by 1785, but his wife and children along with all my other ancestral families prospered and have many descendants today.

Some still live in Canada, but quite a few of their children’s descendants eventually settled back in the United States.

At the start of the Revolutionary War, none of these men had thoughts of leaving the colonies – leaving other family members, friends and their way of life – to live in what became New Brunswick, Canada.

Each of them faced a choice that became a major turning point in their lives. A choice they never expected to have to make.

Remembering all the Loyalists whose beliefs were strong enough to give up all in this year of 2026 – America’s 250th.

Thank you, Randy, for an interesting topic this week.