Whynot? WHAT?!?!

After following an shaking leaf on Ancestry.com yesterday, I've come to learn that my great grandfather had a maternal aunt named Jane "Jennie" Samms-Whynot who may have played an instrumental role in bring my Earle line to the United States from Newfoundland.

After reviewing the 1900 U.S. Census that listed my great grandfather's sister, Susie Earle, living with the Whynots in Boston, Massachusetts, I set about to see what else Ancestry might have on the Whynots. After linking my tree to the one census record, 44 additional hints appeared...and then it increased to 71.

Among the hints were some photographs that a researching cousin uploaded to Ancestry from their own personal collection of family photos.

Immediately I saw a resemblance. You tell me. 

The woman on the left is Jane "Jennie" Samms-Whynot; the very handsome gentleman on the right holding the child is my great grandfather, Abram Thomas Earle. Jane would be his aunt.

They aren't the clearest of photographs but I see the same square jaw and that same furrowed brow.

The baby, by the way, is my great uncle, Allen Preston Earle. I never met any of these people.

I still have not determined when exactly my great grandfather, Abe, or any of his older sisters arrived in the U.S. but I know for sure that the eldest sister was in Boston in June of 1900 with the Whynots.

After seeing the photo of Great-Great Aunt Jane I called my grandmother; Abe's daughter-in-law, to see if she had any recollection of anyone ever mentioning family in Boston, or of Jane Whynot. Now granted, my grandmother's memory is not as sharp as it could be but she immediately said, "Yes, Aunt Susie did live in Boston." 

"Did she live with her Aunt Jane?" 

"Hmm, I don't know; but Abe's Aunt did come from Boston for our wedding."

WHAT?!?!

My next step is to show my grandmother this photo and see if maybe - just maybe this woman could be the Aunt who attended my grandmother and grandfather's wedding in 1949.