That’s a Whoops: Photo Identification

Photo identification can be tricky, even when you have testimony from a family member as to the identity of the subject. I have posted a picture and labeled it as Isabella McCabe Anderson (1818-1912) (My maternal grandfather’s grandmother). That is how my mother identified the woman in the picture. But, unfortunately, Mother was wrong.

I discovered through another person’s family tree at Ancestry.com that the woman in the photo is actually Eliza Bassett Emerson (1805-1899) the sister of my great-great-grandmother, Mary Bassett. Hurray for setting the record straight!

Here is the picture I have used, now with proper identification:

Eliza Bassett Emerson

Eliza Bassett Emerson

And here is the picture on Ancestry.com:

Eliza Bassett Emerson

Eliza Bassett Emerson from the Ancestry.com page of Steven & Jennifer Pearson

I had been a bit uneasy about the identification of my picture as Isabella Anderson ever since I received this picture from a cousin of Isabella–it just did not look like the same person.

Isabella McCabe Anderson Circa 1895

Isabella McCabe Anderson Circa 1895

This close up of Isabella is from a four generation picture with her daughter Margaret Anderson Lisle who married a Lisle and then raised four of her deceased daughters’ daughters.

Anderson-Lisle-Butler 4 generation.

Isabella Anderson, Margaret Anderson Lisle, Carrie Lisle Butler, Daughter.

Isabella lived to a great age, and is in the center of a family photo that features the matriarch’s grand children (including my grandfather) and some of her great-daughters (my mother) and great-grandsons.

Caroline Anderson Bird

Family portrait. Amy and Caroline sitting side by side.

Herbert Andrson in rare four- generation family picture. Front Grandma Isabella McCabe Anderson, left her son Frank Anderson, Back her grandson Guy Anderson and his wife, Vera holding great-grandson Herbert, far right, dtr-in-law Mary Brink Anderson, Guy's mother. 1909

Herbert Andrson in rare four- generation family picture. Front Grandma Isabella McCabe Anderson, left her son Frank Anderson, Back her grandson Guy Anderson and his wife, Vera holding great-grandson Herbert, far right, dtr-in-law Mary Brink Anderson, Guy’s mother. 1909

So, Isabella and Eliza–I’m glad to get you all straightened out.

 

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2 thoughts on “That’s a Whoops: Photo Identification

  1. Bro

    Those ancestral ladies look like a bunch of fun-lovin’ party gals — not. Did the photographers give them lemons to suck on just before snapping them? Or was it the whale-bone corsets?

    Reply
  2. Pingback: Favorite Reads of the Week: 12 March 2016 – Family Locket

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