Unknown Family Photo

[ericadawn16]

My grandparents are both dead so now I have two boxes of family photos and most are NOT labeled. They include tintypes and when I was trying to date those, I ran into another mystery. I don't know who this young woman is, but she was included so I assume she's related. However, there has been some debate on her ethnicity.

What do you think? What would you guess as her cultural heritage/background?



She was probably born in Illinois or Indiana if that helps any.

Comments

[surreal-44.livejournal.com]

She looks German/Italian to me. It's possible there could be some Hispanic or Native American blood. Have you tried ancestry.com to try tracing some of your family history?

[ericadawn16.livejournal.com]

I have a LOT of German as most early Indiana settlers were descended from Germans. I did try Ancestry.com a long time ago so I used up the free trial and would now have to pay if I wanted to use it at all.

I really doubt Hispanic for Indiana or Illinois in the 1890s, but I suppose I could be wrong. Everyone I show it to has bought up Native American, but I'm not sure how I could confirm that either...although a latent Asian gene would finally explain my eyes.

[surreal-44.livejournal.com]

Well I did suggest Native American, but I don't believe that she looks full-blooded.

The other way you could try to connect to other members of your family is to put your grandparents' names and birth dates/locations in google and see if they pop up in any on-line family data bases or histories.

It's possible to connect with family you never even knew you had and a way to find information that you may not be able to find just by doing research through birth records. :-D

[geminia905.livejournal.com]

It does appear she could have some mixed heritage. Unfortunately, sometimes even if you know this it can be difficult to know what that heritage is.

We have some ancestors who claimed to be half-black, however, at the time it was not unusual for Native Americans in Indiana to make this claim to avoid going to a reservation, so to this day we're still not sure of their heritage.

[ericadawn16.livejournal.com]

Oh...

That is interesting although will definitely make things harder, I hope when I piece together the pictures more, maybe I can find out who she is.

Sometimes, I wish we could borrow the Tardis just for stuff like this.

[geminia905.livejournal.com]

I'll show the picture to our resident genealogists and see if they can give me some insight on what might be a good route for you to go with it.

TARDIS would definitely make things a LOT easier, though. *g*

[ericadawn16.livejournal.com]

Oh, thank you!

[kimmmay.livejournal.com]

I was going to say hispanic as well like the person above, but for sure mixed. Just can't point out what that would be.

[meowbooks.livejournal.com]

I agree on the Native American possibility, but you're right it's hard to place. Hispanic is a possibility,too.

[hippediva.livejournal.com]

She looks VERY much like my paternal Grandmother and her family----they were Bavarian with a lot of moving back and forth across the Italian/German Alps during the 19th century.

And the hand-colouring is just beautiful on her ribbon and earrings! Thank you for sharing her---she's lovely!

[ericadawn16.livejournal.com]

Bavaria!

(hugs)

I've traced a lot of my family to the Rhineland-Palatinate! This is a new county, but it includes what was once part of Bavaria, the Rhenish Palatinate, plus, I have a lot of family born in Switzerland so Bavarian is extremely plausible.

Thank You!

Oddly enough, it wasn't until I was looking at the picture on the computer that I even noticed the coloring! They also added some color to her cheeks.

[hippediva.livejournal.com]

*G* That makes sense---the full lips and darker skin tones---that reminds me SO much of my Grandmother. She was 5' tall by 5' wide, always wore black ("just in case") and carried a rosary in her pocket and wore her hair in braids wrapped around her head until she was nearly 80. *giggle* She used to walk to daily Mass and was often mistaken for Italian as Franklin Square's ethnic demographic changed and the German families moved out, replaced by Italian ones in the late 50's and 60's.

I love those old photos! They are just marvelous. I hope you can find out who she is. She's so pretty!

[trektotorch.livejournal.com]

I agree with others that she looks to be of mixed heritage. But, had to say what. Whatever, she is absolutely lovely and it is a wonderful picture. I would be pleased to have it in my collection. I believe that pictures from earlier eras are so much better than current pictures. There is just something about them that is timeless.

[venusinchains.livejournal.com]

Without seeing natural hair color and skin color (or even with), there are so many ways you could go with her possible heritage... (As everyone else is pointing out.) Do tell, if you ever figure it out. (Whatever the case, you obviously have good genes in the family.)