Well, who are you? (Who are you? Who, who, who, who?)
I really wanna know (Who are you? Who, who, who, who?)
Tell me, who are you? (Who are you? Who, who, who, who?)
‘Cause I really wanna know (Who are you? Who, who, who, who?)
As I look through the hundreds of family photos my cousin scanned, these lyrics from The Who are running through my head. I’ve come a long way putting names to several of the previously unknown faces, but there is a group of beautiful, unidentified, cased portraits I keep circling back to. They have me stumped. I’m not even completely sure they belong to my family, but if not, where did they come from? I’d love to find their names and add their faces to my family tree, but for now, they don’t seem to belong anywhere. I’ll walk through the steps I’ve taken to identify them. Spoiler alert: I still don’t know who they are, but I haven’t given up hope of finding them a spot in my tree. For the time being, they’re “out of place,” which is the theme for Week 3 of the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks challenge.
I asked my uncle which side of our family these portraits came from. He didn’t know. I asked my grandmother’s only living cousin if he recognized them from the Ladd or Leighton branches of the family. He didn’t. They could be members of the same family or of different families. There are definitely enough similarities in the faces to make me believe some of them are related. I figured that if I could narrow down when they were taken, I might be able to identify them. The problem? I didn’t know anything about old photos when I first started down this path. I knew what tintypes were because I have a couple from my maternal grandfather’s family, however the whopping extent of what I knew was that they existed at all. I’ve done my best to identify these lovely portraits, which I’ve learned are either daguerreotypes, ambrotypes, or tintypes – all types of pictures that can be found as cased images. If I had them in my hands, I might be able to figure out the type, though it wouldn’t help all that much with dating them. As with all technology, there was overlap. Photographers didn’t abandon daguerreotypes the moment ambrotypes were invented, nor did they chuck out all their material for ambrotypes when the process shifted to tintypes. Sometimes cased images like these have a little slip of paper with the name and date of the person, but we weren’t that lucky.
I turned to the internet and found a phenomenal resource: Fixed in Time by Sean William Nolan. He offers his book on dating daguerreotypes, ambrotypes, and tintypes for sale, or as a free PDF. The book gives an important caveat: the dating methods are accurate if the images haven’t been recased, which is always a possibility. If the matte, preserver (metal “frame” that holds the matte and picture together) and the clothing all fit the correct time period, then you can find an approximate date the photo was taken. If you can estimate the ages of the subjects, you can then use the date the photo was taken minus the age to come up with an approximate birth year. Unfortunately, guessing ages in old photos is difficult. As my brother once said when looking at pictures of our grandmother Helen, “She could be anywhere between 15 and 45. With her hair style and clothes, it’s hard to tell.”
Using the mattes and preservers, I sorted the photos into 3 groups.
The first group has four pictures I think of as the man, the lady, grumpy daughter, and pensive girl. The lady and grumpy daughter look alike. In fact, I believe it’s likely that these portraits make up a family group as there’s a definite resemblance, and all four are the same size and have identical mattes and preservers. The floral matte is identified in the book as D & E #36 and is common. It was in use from 1860-1865. The preserver is known as the "star preserver" and is also common. Nolan notes that while it was patented in 1862, it was in use from 1861-1866. The mattes and preservers overlap, which mean these pictures were likely taken between 1861-1865. In terms of the clothing, I’m clueless. I tried to look up examples of 1860s clothing and hairstyles, but I don’t see enough of the clothing in these pictures to get a good sense of the overall look. The best I can say is they don’t not fit the time period. Figuring out their ages, as I said, is difficult.
The man has a craggy face, but I can’t see any gray in his dark hair. He could be anywhere between a rough 35 and 45, putting his approximate birth year range anywhere between 1816-1830. The woman in that group looks to be around the same age range.
The two young women look between 15-25 years old, giving them birth ranges between 1836-1850.
The second group has a serene young woman, and a lady in a larger portrait. The younger lady has a tiny smile, and a soft expression. She also has the star preserver (1861-1866) but her matte is the called the “powder horn” and it’s from the early 1860s. I’m not sure what that means in terms of dating. I view mid-1860s as 1864-1866, so I imagine early is through 1863. Again, I can’t see enough of the clothing to get a sense of the date. This photo was likely taken 1861-1863. She looks younger to me than the young ladies in the first group. I don’t think she’s older than 18, so let’s say she’s 12-18. That gives her a birth range between 1843-1851.
I see a lot of similarities in the faces of the large portrait of the lady and the younger woman. The matte on the lady’s photo is Dean & Emerson #10, which was made between 1859-1863. The preserver is known as “broken zags” and was made from 1861-1865. That means the picture was most likely taken 1861-1863. As I said, she and the younger woman above look like they could be mother and daughter, and the approximate dates for both pictures match. Again, I’m horrible at guessing ages. Let’s assume she’s between 32-42, giving her an approximate birth range between 1819-1831.
The final picture is the toddler. I love this sweet baby’s face! Because dresses were worn by both girls and boys until the age of five or six, it can be difficult to distinguish the gender of such a young child. The way the hair is parted is a strong indication, but not a guarantee. Center parts were generally used on girls, a side part on boys. This appears to be a double side part. I found one reference to a double side part used on young boys, and pictures of slightly older boys from the 1850s and early 1860s have sort of a swooping hairstyle in the front, so I do think he is likely a little boy. The dotted matte was produced between 1854 -1862. The barber pole preserver helps narrow down the date. It was only produced between 1858-1861, so that is likely the range when this picture was taken, and if the baby is around two or so, he was born between 1856-1859.
So who might these people be? If none of these images have been recased, if my estimates/guesstimates are in the ballpark, and if these are direct line ancestors, not many people fit the dates. I can rule out most branches because they fall on one side or the other of these date ranges. No one fits the toddler’s very narrow window. If he was the child or sibling of one of my direct ancestors, it’s possible his birth was never recorded. There are a few possibilities for the other groups of pictures, though none fall as neatly into my date ranges as I would like. The possible families are the Steltzes, the Shaws, and the Rands.
The Steltz family were German immigrants and my great-grandmother Emilie Wolf’s maternal line. Emilie’s mother, Caroline, was born in 1854, and her eldest sister, Minnie, was born in 1852. As I’ve written before, Minnie raised Emilie and her other nieces after her sister Caroline’s death. Their parents, Henry (born about 1817) and Caroline Bernardt Steltz (born 1827) lived near Minnie and her husband, Henry Wagner. Her mother, Caroline, was living with Minnie at the time of her death, so if Caroline had pictures of the family, they would have fallen into Minnie’s possession. Minnie raised her nieces like they were her own children, and my great-grandmother Emilie was the eldest of all the children in the household. Caroline Bernhardt Steltz passed away a few months after her granddaughter, Emilie, married Stanley Turner and moved from Boston to Maine. It’s possible that Aunt Minnie gave Emilie these pictures when she came down for the funeral. I know Emilie attended the funeral because her travel arrangements were mentioned in the newspaper at the time. Out of the three families, the Steltz family fits the best.
Another possibility for either the first group of pictures or part of the second group of pictures is the Shaw family. My great-great grandmother, Annie Shaw, was born in 1852. Her mother, Jane Felker, was born about 1811, and her father, Greenlief Owen Shaw, was born about 1817. In addition to Annie, they had several daughters born before Annie who would fit within the birth years for any of the three young women photographed. Annie’s mothers and sisters all died in the 1860s. Her father remarried and had more children, and again, based on tidbits in the newspaper, I know Annie had a relationship with her stepmother and younger half-sisters. It’s possible one of the women is Jane and at least one of the girls is Annie. The man could be Greenlief.
The final, and least-likely possibility for the portraits is the Rand family. Hannah Margaret Rand was my 3rd great-grandmother, born in 1832, which puts her in the estimated range. She had several sisters all born between 1834-1853, also within the estimated range for the young women. Her parents don’t seem to fit, however, unless I grossly underestimated the ages of the man and woman in the first group. Hannah’s father, Edmund, was born in 1802, and her mother, Julia James, was born in 1805. Still, it’s a possibility.
I realize I’ve made many assumptions. I’ve assumed the images haven’t been recased and I’ve assumed at least some of these people are related. I could be completely wrong about their ages. They may not even be my family members. Hannah Margaret Rand remarried after her husband’s death so it’s possible these are portraits of her second husband’s family. My great-great grandfather, Eugene Ladd, also remarried after his wife’s death. His 2nd wife, Agnes Kelly, never had children, but was married twice before she married Eugene. Could these be pictures of her family, or pictures of one of her previous husbands’ families? She was the only grandmother my grandmother and her cousins ever knew, and I know my great-grandfather’s sister took care of her after Eugene died. Did her old family pictures get mixed into ours? Yes, these are further assumptions and speculations on my part, but that’s all I have to go on at the moment.
With advances in technology, it may eventually be possible to identify these people. My Heritage rolled out a new feature a few months back that uses AI to recognize and group faces. I’ve found it to be fairly accurate. In the future, perhaps it will be possible to scan these photos and compare them to all the identified photos online through genealogical websites, newspapers, libraries, and photo-reuniting sites like Dead Fred. There’s a chance there are other, identified pictures of these people in existence, maybe ten or twenty years later when tintypes made way for cabinet cards. I’m optimistic that someday I’ll be able to put names with these faces, and they’ll find their place – even if it’s not on my family tree.
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