Friday's Photo: A Confirmation from Related Faces

My father told me the child in this photo was his father, Redic Eli Bryan, born in 1870 in Bienville Parish, Louisiana. How did he know? Dad's father died when he was eight years old in 1929. His mother died before his father, and no extended family was nearby. Dad was raised by his older sisters. Did they know? 

Studying the photo, I could see that the child was a boy. He was wearing a high-necked, long sleeve shirt or jacket and trousers. He is leaning on a fringed armrest, indicative of other family photos seen in the 1860s and 1870s. If this is Redic, it would be the early 1870s, and he looks about four years old. 

I have found more than a few of this family's photos with incorrect identifications, so I decided to try the free trial at Related Faces to confirm this identification. 

Related Faces uses AI to scan photos and compare faces with their entire database. For this project, I used Related Faces to compare the photo of the young boy with many photos of known family members. 

I had questions about comparing photos to known family members and contacted Related Faces. My questions were answered quickly by Founder and CEO, Tina LaFreniere. She wrote that Related Faces would not give me a definitive answer but would point me in the right direction. Tina also suggested I ask myself the following questions when looking at the suggested pairings:

• Is the date of the photo correct for my person? 
• Is the age of my person correct for the photo?
• Is the gender correct for my photo? 
• Is the clothing correct for the period?
• Is your person making pairings with other people from their family (i.e., are family traits coming through)?

I knew from reading the FAQ page at Related Faces that children often made pairings with many non-family members due to those cute, round faces that don't yet have the hard bone structure of adults. Knowing this, I did not expect to find pairings with high resemblance scores; however, I was pleased with the results. 

My grandfather's best match was that of a very poor-quality photo of his sister Hollon (the pairing at the top). Hollon and Redic share some of the same facial features. However,  the photo could not be of Hollon as I have seen young photos of some of her sisters, who were all dressed in very girlish styles. 

The subsequent two pairings are those of young girls. The young girl in each photo is Redic's oldest daughter, Marie Bryan. I believe that the photo of the child is too old to be that of Marie, who was born in 1901. And I have only seen Marie dressed in girlish fashion in her childhood photos.

The last three pairings show the child paired with men. All three men are photos of my grandfather, Redic Bryan. The first photo was taken in 1900, the second in about 1890, and the third in 1910. 

These pairings convinced me that my father's identification of the child as his father, Redic Eli Bryan, was correct. 

Related Faces

I first heard about Related Faces at a local genealogical society meeting. Tina LaFreniere's presentation came at the time I was reexamining some unidentified photos. I began with a free trial and now have a subscription. Using Related Faces, I put a name to a photo that I thought would never be identified and confirmed the identity of a few others. Watch for more posts revealing my successes with Related Faces. 

If you want to know more about the families I research, click here to like my Facebook page, where you will see each post and other genealogical finds. 

Diana

© 2023 

Friday's Photo: Dunguaire Castle, County Galway, Ireland

Since today is St. Patrick's Day, I wanted to post something from last year's Ireland trip. Pictured is Dunguaire Castle, sometimes seen as Kinvara Castle. This castle is just outside Kinvara, and although I made several trips to Ireland and always visited Kinvara, I only stopped at the castle on this last trip. 

As we walked the grounds and inside the castle, I wondered about my husband's Quinn ancestors - they lived just down the road and could probably see it from their home. The castle was in ruins when his grandfather lived nearby. Had he walked the same paths?

The castle has a fascinating history. Read the signs pictured below or check out this informative post - Dunguaire Castle – Celtic Legends and Celtic Revival.

 If you want to know more about the families I research, click here to like my Facebook page, where you will see each post and other genealogical finds. 

.

Diana

© 2023 

Driscolls Living in Cohoes, NY between 1870 and 1900

 

In 2000, I visited the library in Cohoes, New York, and copied most pages from city directories naming Driscolls living in Cohoes. Helen Driscoll, daughter of John and granddaughter of Simon, was my husband's maternal grandmother. That same year, I transcribed these Driscoll entries and, under each year, grouped them by address to see possible families. 

In the last month, I have recopied the transcribed list, corrected many mistakes, and added a few years from directories found at Ancestry.com. The remainder of this list, from 1901 to 1935, can be found here. 

Notes: Abbreviations and punctuation were copied from the directories. Deaths and any notes can be seen in red. An asterisk [*] can be seen next to the Driscoll entries I believe MAY be the family I am researching. 

Some abbreviations found in the directories are as follows:

h. is home

n. is near

b. or bds. are boards

opp. is opposite

1870 (Cohoes, page 198)

• Driscoll Dennis, laborer, house 26 Garner
• Driscoll James, overseer, h. 28 Willow *
• Driscoll Simon, shoemaker, h. 28 Willow *
• Driscoll James, laborer, h. near reservoir
• Driscoll John, Mrs., h. 18 Congress
• Driscoll John J., Clerk, bds. 18 Congress
• Driscoll Samuel, laborer, h. Vliet n. Willow *

1871 (Cohoes, page 199)

• Driscoll Dennis, laborer, house 26 Garner
• Driscoll James, overseer, h. 28 Willow*
• Driscoll James, laborer, h. near reservoir
• Driscoll John, Mrs., h. 18 Congress
• Driscoll John J., Clerk, bds. 18 Congress
• Driscoll Samuel, laborer, h. Harmony opp. lock 16 *
• Driscoll, Simon P., shoemaker, house Harmony opp. lock 16 *
• Driscoll Simon, laborer, h. Harmony opp. lock 16 *
• Driscoll John, laborer, bds 16 Strong Pl.

Friday's Photo: Nine Unidentified Photos that Once Belonged to Henry Collin Sledge of Bienville Parish, Louisiana

Mary Virginia Martin Smith wrote that these photos came from a photo album given to her mother, Anna Laura Martin, by one of her Sledge cousins, Nila Edwards. The album belonged to Nila's father, Henry Collin Sledge (1851-1928) of Bienville Parish, Louisiana. 

To the many readers of this blog who have Bienville Parish ties, do you have identical or similar photos? If this is your family or you can identify the photos, please reply to this blog or contact me on my Facebook page or via email. 

If you want to know more about the families I research, click here to like my Facebook page, where you will see each post and other genealogical finds. 

.

Diana

© 2023 

Sledge Photos, photographs, n.d.; scanned images, from the privately held photo collection of Mary V. Smith, Alaska, 2004. 

Friday's Photo: A Trip to Jones Beach in Daddy's New Buick - November 1937

My mother (right) was 5 years old in this photo, and her sister (left) was 4 years old.  
The car is an eight-cylinder Buick Special. 

Mom said that her parents, Edith Giddens and Claude Davis, purchased a new 1937 Buick with the last of my grandmother's money left from her inheritance. My grandfather did not know how to drive, but the man who sold the car to him taught him to drive it in a few sessions. My grandmother took lessons but never got her driver's license. 

Mom remembers visiting family in New Jersey and upstate New York in the car as well as a short trip to Connecticut and Rhode Island. They often took Sunday drives, but the rides were shorter and less frequent when gas was rationed during WWII.  

The back of the photo identifies this as November, and my mother later wrote 1937. The sign in the photo below confirms the year to be 1937. 

Betty (left) and Janet (right)

CENTRAL MALL

FOOD BARS AND COMFORT 

STATIONS IN WEST CENTRAL

MALL BUILDING OPEN

PARKING FREE UNTIL

MAY 30TH 1938

GAMES ARE OPEN DAILY

CHARGES ON SATURDAYS

SUNDAYS AND HOLIDAYS

OTHER DAYS FREE

FREE ROLLER SKATING DAILY

I easily recognized the above photo as Jones Beach due to the wooden structure around the base of a flagpole I remember from my childhood. My brother and I had a similar photo taken in 1963 - click here to see it. 

The following photos were taken at or about the same time. 

My grandfather sold the car when my mother was in college, but both girls did practice driving it. Mom said he purchased a used Packard. My grandfather's last car was a 1964 Buick LeSabre - the one I drove in high school.  

If you want to know more about the families I research, click here to like my Facebook page, where you will see each post and other genealogical finds. 

.

Diana

© 2023 

Photos of the Davis family and the Buick; scanned images, from the privately held photo collection of E. M. Bryan, Virginia Beach, VA, 2023.