Portraits – My Origin Stories

Photographic Evidence: Photographer’s Mark

First published October 5, 2015.

I apologize for my long silence, my computer had a “gremlin” that had to be conquered and I am just picked it up today. I’ll be back to posting regularly. Next weekend, I’m taking a trip home and showing my photographs and research to some family members. Hopefully this will shed more light on to the identities in the photographs that I have.

In my photo collection there is this picture:

There are actually many different copies of this picture but on each of them, there are no names on the back and no adults. It’s difficult to link this child’s photograph with any other pictures. However, using the photographer’s mark, I was able to figure out more information about this photograph and get one step closer to figuring out who this is.

This photo was taken my H.J. Seeley who was located on 922 Main Street in Bridgeport, Connecticut. I couldn’t find a building that has the same address today. Right off the bat, this gave me a place where this picture was taken, thus a place that this child lived.

I looked at old city directories for Bridgeport, Connecticut and H.J. Seeley’s photography studio wasn’t always at 922 Main Street. From at least the 1870s to 1899 the studio was at a different address and from 1900 on the studio moved to the 922 address. This gives a rough time frame for the year this photo was taken.

The next thing to examine in this photo is the child. I’m not a good judge of children’s ages but I’m assuming this child is a toddler so, around three to four years old. In old photographs, the part in a child’s hair is a good indication of their sex, hair parted to the side is typical for a male and hair parted in the middle is typical for a female. This child’s hair is parted to the side, so he is probably a boy.

Thus far I know this child is a boy who lived in Bridgeport, Connecticut and was born around 1900-1910. I’m not sure if this child is related to me but I have multiple copies of this photo in my collection so I’m thinking that this child was very close to my great-grandmother (the pictures are hers). Looking at my family tree, this child could be my great-grandmother’s brother Robert, who was born in 1910. They could also be pictures of her husband Willard Everett who was born in 1903.

I found another picture taken at H.J. Seeley, and based on my other photos I believe her to be Lucy Lamb Husted, my great-great-grandmother who’s child is Robert.

Based on this information, I think that this picture is probably of Robert Husted, my great-great-great-uncle. I have four copies of this picture of Robert plus this other one.

Photographic Evidence: Husted/Stanton Family

First published August 25, 2015.

While researching the last photo that I wrote about, I started thinking about a family portrait that I had.

This picture was taken in Davenport, Iowa, so I assumed that it pictured my great-great-great-grandmother on the left, Sarah J. Husted, and her husband, Lyman B. Husted in the middle of the picture. The man in the back of the picture, who looks a lot like my father, I thought was my great-great-grandfather Lyman M. Husted. I figured the children were those of the woman on the right, who was a sister of Lyman M.

However, going through the steps to date Lyman B.’s previous photograph got me thinking that my initial assumptions were wrong. This sent me on a crazy chase to figure out who these people were in this picture.

I found some old newspapers from Davenport, Iowa that showed a divorce between Sarah J. and Lyman B. I’m not sure if this divorce went through but she shows up in later newspaper articles remarried as Sarah J. Owens. However by 1900 she was going by Sarah J. Husted again. This might be because of inheritance money that was discovered in Connecticut (I’ll talk more about this in another post). Anyway, Lyman B. was 67 when he died and I do not think that this man in this photograph is 67.

I think that Sarah J. is still the woman pictured to the left, however I think the man sitting in the middle is Jehial (or Jehral as I have previously misspelled his name) Stanton her father. In my collection of photographs, I came across a small newspaper clipping (sorry that it is crooked):

This indicates that her father was living with her at some point when he was older. He is also blind, and I might be reading too much into the picture, but he is not looking at the camera the way the other adults are. My next question to answer was: What year was Jehial Stanton born?

This question actually took me awhile to figure out, probably because I had some wrong information. I originally thought his name was Jehral Staton, which I believe I acquired from an obituary of Sarah J. Husted. This made it hard to find any information, but once I started digging I found his correct name. Jehial Stanton was born July 4th, 1823 (based on this clipping and census data). That means that this newspaper clipping was from July 3rd, 1906. So by 1906 he was living with his daughter in Davenport.

I had a difficult time dating the fashion in this photo, but based on the women’s dresses, I think that it was taken sometime between 1900 and 1910. My next question to answer was: Who are the other people in the picture?

The younger man standing up in the middle of the picture is not my great-great-grandfather Lyman M. If this picture was taken between 1900 and 1910, he might have already moved back to his extended family in Connecticut. He does show up in the 1900 Federal Census living with his mother and brother (Sarah J.’s name shows up at the bottom of a page):

However, I no longer think that the young man in this photo is Lyman M. Husted but rather his brother James Elnathan Husted, called Elnathan (also listed in this census). If both sons lived with Sarah J. at the time of this photo, I would think that they would both be in the photo.

Finally, who is the woman and the children? Sarah J. Husted had no female children so my previous theory was wrong. I do not think that this woman is Elnathan’s wife, Lola Husted. On his World War I draft card Elnathan listed that his address was the same as his mother’s and his mother was his next of kin whereas on his World War II draft application, his address was in another state and his next of kin was Lola and this photograph was definitely take before World War I.

Looking back at the 1900 Federal Census, an Effie M. Williams, Sarah J.’s niece, and her children, Charlie O. Williams and Effie B. Williams, are listed as living with Sarah J. The children in this photo, if it was taken between 1900 and 1904, would be about the same age as Charlie O. and Effie B. and the woman on the right of the photo looks to be in her mid twenties, as Effie M. would be. Although I tried, I could not figure out who Effie M.’s parents were.

So my conclusions at this point are that the people in this photo are Sarah J. Husted, James Elnathan Husted, Effie M. Williams, Jehial Stanton, Charlie O. Williams and Effie B. Williams.

Photographic Evidence: Lyman B. Husted

First published August 22, 2015.

This is a photograph of Lyman B. Husted, or at least a photograph of someone with the name Lyman B. Husted written on the back. We found this photo in the box of pictures belonging to my great-grandmother, so I’m going to assume that this is indeed Lyman B. Husted, her grandfather and my great-great-great-grandfather. I was very excited to find this picture because it was very old, on a piece of metal and there was a name on the back. Recently I’ve been reading Family Photo Detective: Learn How to Find Genealogy Clues in Old Photos and Solve Family Photo Mysteries by Maureen Taylor. It is a very good resource and I thought I would use some of the techniques in the book to decode this picture.

The bottom of the photograph is full of clues. “TIMPE”, I believe is the photographer and the picture was taken in Davenport, Iowa. Lyman B. was still living in Connecticut in 1860 according to the 1860 Federal Census. I’m not sure why he moved to Iowa, but he at least was there by 1877 when he married his wife, Sarah J. Staton, in Iowa. Lyman B. died in 1897, so I’m thinking that this photo was taken at some point between 1861 and 1897.

This photo is a tintype photograph, which were introduced in 1856. They fell out of fashion by the end of the century because of the advent of paper photographs. This doesn’t help too much with dating the photo.

Based on the information provided in Family Photo Detective about dating fashion I think that this picture was taken between 1860 and 1870. The collar looks like a standard folded down collar that is worn today. In the decade prior, men wore popped collars that almost touched their cheeks. In the decade after, men wore thicker collars. Also during this time period, men had facial hair and their hair was parted to the side and a little bit longer. Deciphering mens fashion is difficult so I could be totally wrong about this. However if this photo was taken in this period he would be between 30 and 40 years old, which I think is accurate based on how old he looks.

I don’t know why Lyman B. took this photo or why he moved to Iowa, more family mysteries to solve.