Rabbit Holes With Randy -- A Photo Hint, a Petition, a Digital Microfilm, and Success

 Oh boy - a Rabbit Hole!!  Can I find my way out?  Lookee here - a Photo Hint on Ancestry.com from last week!  What is the source citation?

The Ancestry Photo Hint for Burgess Metcalf (1741-1816, a 5th great-grandfather of mine) was from another Ancestry Member Tree:

The Photo Hint indicated that this was a "Petition for Rd 1804 New Hampshire, U.S., Government Petitions, 1700-1826."  That was a pretty good description of the record - but what record collection was it from?  Was it an Ancestry record collection?

I searched Ancestry.com with several of the names on the record and only got the Photo Hint from several Ancestry Member Trees.  So it is not an Ancestry.com record.  I messaged the Ancestry Member Tree creator but have had no response for a week.

What about FamilySearch?  I checked the FamilySearch Family Tree for Burgess Metcalf and this record is not attached to his profile.  It will be soon, of course!  It's not on WikiTree either.

I looked at the record more carefully, and wondered "Where would I find a petition for a road in Piermont, New Hampshire?"  Aha - maybe it would be in a New Hampshire state government collection somewhere.  Aha 2 - check the New Hampshire collections in the FamilySearch Catalog! 

So I did and uncovered "New Hampshire, General town petitions, 1653-1944" in the Catalog.  There is a digital microfilm for "General town petitions, May 1803-Jun 1805" that may have the 16 November 1804 petition.  It has 866 images and there is no index.  However, it was filmed in approximate chronological order.  In five minutes I was able to find November 1804 and then it took another 30 minutes to find November 16 (because some items had no day, only the month).  And image 581 of 866 appeared:

Yep - that's the same image!  Then I thought about "Is this on FamilySearch Full-Text Search?" [I know, I should have thought of this first...before using the Catalog].

So I brought up FamilySearch Full-Text Search and entered "Piermont, Grafton, New Hampshire" in the place field, "1804-1804" in the year field and "Burges Medcalf" in the name field, and then clicked Search.  I had 35 matches, so I selected "Government Records" from the "Record Type" filter, and there were two records.  Voila - there it was!  The same image.  

I downloaded the PDF of the image with the transcription and the source citation and saved it.  

Here is the Full-Text Search source citation:

"New Hampshire, United States records," images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QS7-89QD-RQ6W?view=fullText : Feb 19, 2025), image 581 of 866.

My citation is:

New Hampshire legislative records, Burges Medcalf signature on petition of town of Piermont to state legislature, 16 November 1804; imaged, "New Hampshire, General town petitions, 1653-1944," FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QS7-89QD-RQ6W?view=fullText : Feb 19, 2025), "General town petitions, May 1803-Jun 1805," image 581 of 866.

 Now I can turn this rabbit hole success into a Treasure Chest Thursday post next week (if I remember to use it!).  

Even better - a second ancestor of mine - Amos Underhill (1772-1865), the son-in-law of Burgess Metcalf, also signed the petition!

I deserve some carrots today for digging my way into and out of this Rabbit Hole!  

Hmmm - what about the other 34 records turned up by Full-Text Search?  More rabbit holes to dive into over the weekend.  Sounds like fun!

Kudos to the Ancestry Member Tree user who found this record initially!

What have you found recently using the FamilySearch Catalog and/or the FamilySearch Full-Text Search?  I think this will be my Saturday Night Genealogy Fun challenge this week - Readers beware!  

I love it when one Ancestry Photo Hint turns into two (or) more blog posts. 

Lesson Learned (again):  Check your Record Hints, Photo Hints, and Story Hints on Ancestry, MyHeritage and FamilySearch often!

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