Harry Mattimore, grandfather to my Mattimore 2nd cousins, loved to collect postcards when young. Many were ones sent to him, but others were sent to his Aunt Kate, grandmother O’Rourke and others. He kept them all, and preserved them in several large binder notebooks with plastic protectors.

Also in the collection were postcards from his father, Henry Mattimore, who often worked out west or in Panama where he was a boilermaker on the project to build the Panama Canal.

A postcard from Nicaragua from Henry Mattimore to his son Harry, 1905

Harry and brother Joe's aunt and grandma remained close with their family back in Oswego, where they were originally from. Before modern-day inventions such as cell phones and email, postcards were an easy way to stay in touch. Some of the postcards indicated when someone would be arriving in Buffalo or Oswego, and on which train. Most were greetings for Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving, St. Patrick’s Day and other holidays. There were messages about gifts or packages sent, babies born and family updates about Kate’s cousins.

Various postcards from Harry's collection

"You are the best Irish critter going" -- St. Patrick's Day postcard to Harry, 1909 (sender unknown)

Lorie Deacon Steinwald told me about her grandfather’s collection of postcards at one of the annual Mattimore family picnics, and I knew I wanted to see these postcards from a lifetime ago. Lorie graciously dropped the binders by my mom’s house at some point, and I was able to see them when home for Christmas that year. Lots of the cards date to the early 1900s. The earliest I saw was 1905, when Harry would have been 10. But there were too many to get the details on them all.

Top: Aunt Kate to her mother. Middle: Harry to Nellie King, his grandma's cousin. Bottom: Henry Mattimore to Aunt Kate.

I photographed several of the postcards, front and back, so that I could examine them further when I had time, and to figure out who some of unknown writers and/or recipients of the cards were. A few of the cards were scanned and posted to my Ancestry account for the appropriate ancestor.

What I didn’t expect was to hear from a stranger who stumbled across one of these randomly chosen — but very pertinent — postcards while researching on Ancestry.com at a public library. He then googled my name and found me through my photography website, and sent me the following message:

“Your exquisite images have delivered me from this brisk wintry day in NYC: thank you! It was another image, however, that led me to contact you: that of a postcard you attached to Ellen King (daughter of Thomas Parker King) of Oswego, NY, on your Ancestry tree. The 23 Dec 1909 correspondence from Ellen to her cousin Catherine O'Rourke mentions that "Tom Parker was buried this afternoon… he died as he lived." Indeed, my great-great-grandfather's brother Thomas F. Parker, a shipbuilder in Oswego, did die there on 22 Dec 1909. Your thoughtfulness in posting this has resolved a 40-year search for my Parker ancestral home (on Tralee Bay!): the Kings were sponsors for our Parkers' baptisms in Kingston, Ontario, and vice versa, and I am indebted to you for solving this mystery.… cousins!
With deep gratitude and warm wishes,
Art Parker (Manhattan, NY)”

Thus began a journey of discovery with Art Parker: The 2,000 miles between us did not diminish our teamwork capabilities! What I knew at that time was that our 3rd great uncle Thomas King had Parker as a middle name. And his father, our 4th great grandfather Morgan King, a shipbuilder in Tralee, married a woman named Ellen Parker.

The clues were right in front of us with the baptismal sponsors. A King girl and a Parker boy were both baptized at St. Mary's Cathedral in Kingston on the same day in 1855… and Timothy King (our 3X great grandfather) was a sponsor for Robert George Parker… Art’s great great grandfather's youngest brother. The King girl was Mary Anne, a daughter of our 3rd great grandparents Timothy and Catherine (Moriarty) King (parish record below). Was this serendipity? Divine providence? After decades of research, neither of us much believed in genealogical coincidences anymore, so we pursued the lead.…

The pieces to the puzzle were now falling together: Catharine King had been the sole sponsor at the baptism of Art’s 2x great grandfather in 1848, at Kingston. Four years later, his 3rd great grandmother Mrs. Catharine Parker had been the sponsor at the 1852 baptism of John King, Timothy and Catharine's son. According to the Kingston city directories (1850s), the families of Timothy King and James Parker, both shipbuilders, resided in the Marine Railway Cottages.

More unraveled: marriage and other records led us to additional connections between the families, and to the ultimate moment: the discovery of a common place in Ireland: Co. Kerry, civil parish of Ballynahaglish, Roman Catholic parish of Ardfert, townland of Tawlaght (or Talaught) on the shores of Tralee Bay. This was huge! I had not known precisely where our King ancestors were from prior to this and Art had been searching for 40 years.

Tawlaght is located on north side of Tralee Bay less than 10 km west of Tralee town, just south of the Shannon Estuary

I’m absolutely amazed that our ancestors immigrated to Kingston about 180 years ago, and the family is now in touch once again.

All of this courtesy of Ellen King’s postcard in 1909 to her cousin — our great great grandmother — with the words ”Tom Parker was buried this afternoon… he died as he lived." If Harry had not kept this postcard, and granddaughter Lorie had not happened to mention the postcard collection to me, and I had not added this particular postcard to my Ancestry tree, this mystery may never have been solved.

Post notes:
1) The Kings and Parkers may have first arrived in Kinston, Ontario, but they eventually relocated across Lake Ontario to Oswego, New York.
2) We believe that our 4th great grandmother Ellen Parker King was a likely sibling or perhaps 1st cousin to Art’s 3rd great grandfather, James Parker. But proving this with DNA is really pushing the limits of what autosomal DNA testing can tell us today. That may change one day, but for now, the precise connection is a likely theory as records are spotty at best for that specific time and parish in Ireland.