Who are the children in this picture? After finding a list of names in the 1915 census noting they lived at the Lamoni Children’s Home, I was hopeful. Perhaps with this beautiful, clear photo of children at the Home I could identify them. From comparing other pictures I know that Superintendent, W.P. Robinson is on the left and Mrs. Isabelle Robinson on the far right. Helen Robinson is the woman in the back on left and Randall & Carrie (Lester) Robinson in the back on the right. Can you identify anyone else in this picture?
I’d like to share this project with you. Perhaps you will have ideas to share about how can we match names to faces more than 100 years after the picture was taken. Here is how I started:
- Establish date and place of photo (backdrop, clothing, footwear or lack of)
- In this photo I see young ladies with big ribbons in their hair, Gibson girl style hair, women in dresses, young boys in nickers, girls in boots, young men in suits.
- Determine the sex of each child in the photo.
- There are 12 girls, 10 boys.
- Size/Age of each child (guessing)
- Female/Age: 13, 12, 11, 10, 9, 8, 8, 8, 7, 5, 4, 3,
- Male/Age: 12, 11, 9, 9, 8, 6, 5, 4, 2, 2.
- Some girls are wearing ribbons. Some are holding dolls.
- Some boys have suit and tie.
- Siblings in photo?
- There are 7 very blonde children (could this be the Perry family who had 7 children at the Home?).
- Two dresses appear the same fabric (could this be siblings?)
- Compare the photo with other similar photos (place, date).
- Number each person in photo – jot down what you see. Note the little boy holding a cowboy hat, boots, buckle and bolo tie.
- Ask others to look at the picture, what characteristics do they see?
In my research notebook I have created and printed out a page with each person on a page. The isolation helped me focus on each person. I clipped each face and wrote the number of where they were in the picture.
I then wrote my observations and what I hoped to learn about each person.
Using each name from the census, I searched on Ancestry, FamilySearch and myHeritage. I located relatives of 2 names, I contacted them. One knew his relative was at the Home, the other didn’t.
I reached out to families who have family pictures online. Asking them to look at the photo to see if they recognize their family member.
Ultimately, I am making assumptions, but as my dad said “who is gonna say I’m wrong?” ha ha
Even I am amazed at how much I found so fast. Recent technology is so wonderful!
My guess at who is in this picture based on names/ages in 1915 Census. (See last blog for complete list of names ‘at Children’s Home).
I utilized many genealogical sites for help. I found the Decatur IA GenWeb Decatur County IAGenWeb site very useful in finding names and pictures of Lamoni adults and church leaders. (Independence, Missouri also holds many good records for the Reorganized Latter Day Saints.) The Family History Library has scanned many records associated with the rLDS organization. (More about that soon).
There are many unidentified-photograph websites, facebook groups and genealogical societies. Crowd Sourcing is a great way to let others consider your project. Examples include DeadFred.com – it is just plain fun to look at, so much work goes into each photograph! Family Treasures Found on Facebook is one of my favorites! Amazing to see the 42,000 members go to work on identifying a possible date, location and name of person in photo or treasure. Many posts are second hand store finds!
Local historical societies are often eager to post your picture on facebook and generate some real feed back. A google search of images can be fun even when its not exactly who you are looking for. Look at clothing and hair style examples.
The facebook group “You Know You Grew Up in Lamoni If” was a wealth of info. Many local history and photo posts. And I found a Robinson family grandchild!!! They emailed me a history that Carrie Robinson wrote about the Children’s Home. When asking a family member for help, remember they may not even know their ancestor had been at the Children’s Home. Gently suggest it and offer to send photo for comparison! They may not reply but the picture you send may end up on their genealogy page (that is a pretty good hint).
Google may offer you a solution – go to images.google.com, click on the camera icon, upload your image and hit search. Amazing!
While searching about photo identification I came across Lisa Lisson’s site. Great tips for identifying unknown family photographs. https://lisalisson.com/4-tips-identify-unknown-family-photographs/
One last idea, online yearbooks (or those on local school library shelves) provide a wealth of information.
Do you have an old group photo you would like to identify?
Geneographer 
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