If your family was anything like mine, people did NOT find it necessary to label every photograph. I've had to make educated guesses as to whose face I see in many different photographs, or I go to relatives who may know. What do I do when neither gives me an answer? I look to see if I have a photo with a similar-looking face. How do I make sure the faces are from the same person? Well, I do a few things. Meet Mystery Soldier: After going through my Grandma's photo albums for the millionth time (I inherited them and couldn't be happier), I found this dude at the bottom of a tub filled with framed photos and rat poison. No rats, thankfully. There is no name, of course, and no photographer's mark. I had to refer to my blog post on identifying subjects, but with a twist: I had no guesses as to who this soldier was. Using my tips on identifying subjects, though, I started to narrow down my guesses. Step 1: Narrow Down the PossibilitiesI started with the approximate time period: Definitely WWI-era. I was almost positive this was a Hickle or Hermann, and not an ancestor of my Grandpa Vance. His uniform just looks Austrian, right? But I needed to be sure. After a bit of Googling, I found that Austro-Hungarian soldiers during WWI wore hats identical to my Mystery Soldier's. His uniform is similar to the photos I found of these soldiers' dress uniforms, though I wasn't too concerned about them being identical... I figured my soldier was wearing an every-day uniform and not a formal one. So I had the time and the place narrowed down- it had to be a Hermann or Hickle. I knew there were soldiers in both families, so I was no closer to naming the soldier than I was when I found him. I resorted to looking through all my other photos to see if I could find him elsewhere... he definitely looked familiar to me! It didn't take me long to find this photo... check out the father. |
Soldier: Pros:
| "Louis" Hickle: Pros:
|
From this, I concluded the soldier was NOT Louis Hickle. But I also concluded the man in the family photo wasn't Louis either. Life lesson: don't always trust the name on the back of a photo! My next step?
Step 3: Talk to Family
This simply fit into place. Josef was married to a Hedwig Titz in Mährisch Trübau before the war. I still do not know the names of two of their children, but my relative informed me that the eldest daughter was named Mary. More about her in a different post- she is pretty fascinating!
Now that I knew the father in the family photo was Josef Hückl, I still had my mystery soldier to name. And they still looked like the same man to me!
Step 4: Face Comparison
Happy face-comparison.
~Sadie
I tested the site with several pics of my wife that I took. The site gave a 72% similarity and said they were not the same person. So I took new pics and of my wife with the same result and even tried four other people with new pics. This site is fake and a total scam. PicTriev, is not at all correct. My sister-in-law is a professional photographer and I ask her to test the site also. It is not at all accurate.
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Sadie Nelson
I have too many hobbies. Genealogy started out as one and quickly took over as my passion. Dust off those old family photos and let's fill out those family trees!
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