If you have read the stories on my Ancestry Public Member Tree, you may have seen the below information. I thought it would be good to share here as well.
These photographs of Reddick and Elizabeth Regan Bryan can be seen in more than 100 Public Family Trees at Ancestry.com and at countless web pages on the Internet. The original photos are in a family Bible that belonged to Terrell Bryan, son of Reddick and Elizabeth, and is currently in my possession. Look closely at the photographs - Reddick is holding a crop of some kind and Elizabeth is holding glasses.
The photographs were probably taken between 1860 and 1864. Reddick died in January of 1864. On the back of each, the following is written:
E.W. Mealy's
Photograph Gallery,
Monroe, Louisiana
Duplicates of this can be had at any time.
These are CDVs (Cartes de visite), not tintypes, which were widely available in the United States after 1859. I know of one other Bryan descendant who has original copies of these photographs and it would be interesting to know if others have survived.
Imagine how surprised Reddick and Elizabeth would be to know these have been copied by hundreds of persons and viewed by thousands around the world.
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Diana
© 2017Sources
Family photographs and documents from the collection of Diana Bryan Quinn.
Quinn, Diana Bryan. "The Photographs." Ancestry.com., 2012. Web. 29 Jan. 2017. <http://mv.ancestry.com/viewer/ad4bcf3d-530a-4fe6-81ef-32e34081c0fc/45260559/6334928578>.
Taylor, Maureen. "The Photo Detective, How to Date an Old Photograph" Web. 29 Jan. 2017. <https://maureentaylor.com/learn/how-to-date-an-old-photograph/>.
The interesting thing is, Mealy didn't come to Monroe until 1866, a few years after your ancestors died. This means someone in the family, between 1866 and when Mealy died in 1908, had copies made and the cartes de visite is a copy!
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