No.
No, no, no, no.
Just no.
The Legal Genealogist can’t handle this on a rainy nasty Saturday morning.
No.
My fifth great grandmother was Elizabeth (Pettypool) Jones. She was born around 1750, and died in September 1818. She is buried at Sandy Run Baptist Cemetery in Cleveland County, North Carolina.1
You can see a photograph of her tombstone there on Find A Grave: the inscription reads “In memory of Elizabeth Jones Consort of John Jones Who died Septr 25 1818 Aged 6(8?) years.”2
And you can find there another photograph. The one that’s illustrating this blog post.
A photograph purportedly of Elizabeth (Pettypool) Jones.
Now…
Let me repeat something here.
Elizabeth (Pettypool) Jones was born around 1750, and died in September 1818.
And the very first permanent photograph, of anything, ever known to have been created was created by a Frenchman, Nicéphore Niépce, in 1826.3
Niépce and another Frenchman named Jacques Louis Mande Daguerre teamed up three years later — in 1829 — to try to perfect the photographic process. But it wasn’t until 1839 that the details of the first commercially practical photographic process, the daguerreotype, were announced in public.4
That same year, 1839, is when an Englishman named William Henry Fox Talbot announced his process for what he called photogenic drawing — combining negatives and light-sensitive papers to produce images.5
You’re getting the drift, right?
There is no way that a process that didn’t even begin until 1826 could possibly have been used to create an image of a woman who died in 1818.
No.
No, no, no, no.
Just no.
SOURCES
- W.D. Floyd, “Cleveland County Cemeteries,” Website On Disks, CD-ROM (Forest City, NC : Genealogical Society of Old Tryon County, 2007), entry for Elizabeth Jones, Sandy Run Baptist Cemetery. ↩
- Sandy Run Baptist Cemetery, Cleveland County, North Carolina, Elizabeth Jones marker; digital image, Find A Grave (http://findagrave.com : accessed 18 July 2015), photo added by Sharon, Find A Grave member #46808067. ↩
- “Timeline,” History of Photography, PBS (http://www.pbs.org/ : accessed 18 July 2015). ↩
- Helmut Erich Robert Gernsheim, “History of Photography,” Encyclopedia Britannica (http://www.britannica.com/ : accessed 18 July 2015). ↩
- Ibid. ↩
That is just irritating Judy. I hope you can get the person who posted it to remove it. One of the rules on FaG that should be changed, is to allow memorial managers to remove photos. I’ve had people post unwanted pictures of documents and duplicate headstones on “my” memorials. Not that I don’t welcome many of the pictures. I once had an Ancestry user post my grandfather’s picture in her tree, although she’s not related. Her reason “I just liked his picture.” Oh my……
Good luck.
“Irritating” is a good word. It may well be a photo of a member of the Jones family — but how in the world can it possibly be a photo of Elizabeth??? Sigh…
Yes, it is very irritating. Unlike Diane, I do not believe it is a good idea for a memorial manager to be able to remove photos added by another Find A Grave user because people can be petty so such an ability would undoubtedly be abused. However, Find A Grave does give us a method to have inappropriate or incorrect photos removed! See
this FAQ for the appropriate email address.
The notion that this is subject to abuse is sad all by itself.
Indeed. If adults would simply act like adults, Find A Grave (and most sites) would not need as many rules as they have.
No is right! That photo was taken during the early Civil War era – the hair parted in middle, the snood (or perhaps bonnet, hard to tell from the photo) is typical of that time period. Even her clothing screams “Early 1860s!”
🙁
Details, details. 🙂
Right on, Lorine! That dress is no earlier than mid-19th Century (1855-1865).
I find amusing this comment left by the person who uploaded the photo:
Sigh… 🙂
Sigh. This type of mis-identification happens ALL the time. There are few photographic portraits in those early years most date from after 1840.
You of all people would sympathize on this one!!
When it comes to photography, ignorance is often bliss!
Ain’t that the truth…
I have lost a great deal of respect for Findagrave in the last year. I see a posted biography on a Virginia family ancestor that is so full of errors and hype that there is no way to even begin to deal with the perpetrator. When did the allowance of these extensive biographies get out of control? I wish folks would stick to simple transcriptions of tombstones.
I don’t mind if people post info they’re not sure of — if they say they’re not sure. I do mind if they post info that cannot, possibly, be true under any circumstances.
My son’s paternal lines have several of those posted on FAG and Ancestry. Even when you send a private message to the posters of the tree or FAG memorial, it never gets corrected. Finally, I give up trying the private way and post a public comment. Usually that gets some action – not always – but some. Sigh… gotta love it.
Sigh…
Ouch. I know how painful this is. Until it happens to our own folks, hard to realize how much it can rankle.
In a lighter example, I once found on Ancestry a nice picture from around 1885 of a middle aged gentleman in a suit, attached to a person who was born in the 1600’s. I wrote as polite a note as I could pointing out the impossibility. Got a note in reply saying he would look into it and if my info “checked out” he would remove it. I’m not sure what happened after that – hopefully it “checked out”.
I’d love to have a photo of someone born in the 1600s. And I’d love to win the lottery and…
Reminds me of the time I was repeatedly advised to check the SSDI for someone who died in 1901…
Ahahahaha! Love it… Um… no.
Recently, I had another issue with a photograph added to my husband’s ancestor. The memorial was created by a man who does wonderful work photographing complete cemeteries…African-American Cemeteries. And, the photo the woman used was of a white soldier. Now, our ancestor in question was indeed a soldier, but, he was African-American. And there aren’t really any lig
ht-skinned folks in that lineage. So, I contacted the woman who posted it and the owner of the memorial. He removed the photo, and wrote me back saying that he was sorry…. And then he told me how this woman had written to him and requested that he allow her to take it over.
Ouch. That really hurts.
I have almost given up using FaG as a reliable source; beyond their rambling incorrect attached genealogies leading to “Burial Unknown” statements and picture attachments such as your problem one, Judy, just drive me crazy. Getting something corrected [even if you have the fact sourced] is problematic; I have pretty much stopped even trying. I wish ancestry.com [or whomever] would set some standards for the information posted and not even allow information posted without the burial place being known. Oh well…
The information on Find A Grave is no worse (maybe no better either, but no worse) than any unsourced online information (koff koff… can we talk about online trees?). If we treat it as a hint, and not as gospel, it could be valuable. Where I draw the line is with things — like this photo — that are not simply unlikely but are flat out impossible.
Unfortunately, Judy, this is a “go-go-go” world! People just go merrily go along posting information but giving no thought to “checking it out”!! From the time that I first knew about F-A-G, I’ve made a copy and used it as a starting point for my research. Even if I already have sourced info about the person who is in that grave, I check out the parents, wives, children, siblings, etc. I just have this feeling that if I don’t do that, the information which will pass on to my descendants will be sullied by my misinformation.
She looks quite well for being dead a couple of decades. Someone got their Elizabeths mixed up.
As good an explanation as any! 🙂
I hear you on the frustration of people posting impossibilities 🙁 I’m just curious though if it’s possible it could be a photograph of a drawing that someone uploaded? It’s tough to tell from the photo in the post but it almost looks like a portrait? I do realize you all know more about dating an image from clothing than I do though also and if it doesn’t add up it doesn’t add up :/
It might be possible in another case, but not here. The dress is clearly 1850s or later.
The picture was obviously taken by The Doctor. Using his TARDIS, he went back in time, retrieved Elizabeth and brought her forward in time, where she had a makeover and had her picture taken by Matthew Brady.
Simple, when you know how it happened. It’s the obvious explanation!
Now why didn’t I think of that… 🙂
I have seen so many of these instances on Ancestry trees. Some time ago, I received a hint for my 2nd great grandfather’s second wife (a woman with a common name like Elizabeth Brown although I did not know whether Brown was her married name or maiden name). I have very little information about her so I happily followed the hint. The tree contained a link to Elizabeth’s first husband. Who died 54 years before she was born (1822) but who fathered her 6 children! And the tree contained a photo of him!