Question of the Week: Do you have a favorite photo of an ancestor?

Question

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I wanted to share this family photo of Kate Crum with the community.   Of all the photos I have seen during this time period, I have not seen one so dramatic/photogenic. Location: unknown. Date: .

Click here for the image details page or here for the full-sized version (3000 x 4000).

Answer 1

Yes this is my 4xGGfather George Ludwig DeBeck who received the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour when fighting with Napolean at the Battle of Wagram in 1809.

Answer 2

It's fabulous - must've been an easy subject and great, candid, photographer.

Answer 3

Well, this is an 1837 portrait, but pre-photography, but I get a kick of my 2g-grandfather posing like a southern dandy - J E Robinson left his Meredith, New Hampshire home as a young man to engineer bridges for the nascent B&O railroad in Maryland. Here he is at age 23 - within a few years he married and returned to northern New York and was a farmer with a big family, living there for the rest of his life. I marvel that this painting has survived in our family since it is larger than life-size, at 7 feet tall. You can see the cut line across the middle where it was trimmed to fit a more "standard" frame, the lower half rolled up (note the creases). It was a big enough effort to restore it to this state, and we enjoy seeing the remaining "defects" left as part of history. It hangs in our entry stairwell - the only place tall enough for it...

Answer 4

I have way too many favorite family pictures, but here is one of them - my grandfather and my father about 1940 likely at Fort Bragg.

I enjoy it because it's a picture of the pre-World War II U.S, Army with my grandfather as a young officer dressed for riding, but also because my father is a matching outfit and because you can see my grandfather's personality coming through.

Answer 5

I have many favorite photos, but this one of my Dad's Uncle Charlie is a favorite because of the back of the photo. 

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The inscription reads "To My Sweetheart Euada from Charles Rohme who is waiting for her." He proposed in 1917, but Ada's mother forbid her to marry. Her mother died in 1922, and she married Charlie in 1923. He waited 6 years!