Whose Minnie Will You Be?
By kaylal on in Perspective with 11 Comments
As you know I’ve been working on a very big family history project. I don’t consider myself a genealogy buff at all – in fact if you asked me about genealogy I would tell you it is pretty much completely over my head.
Those of you who are Finding Photo Flow will know that I consider myself a family curator, not a genealogist. This is becoming even more real to me as I work to find flow with the photos and stories I have inherited, placing them with the correct family members and matching things up, guessing years, etc. It really is as close to a mystery treasure hunt as I ever have been.
My biggest mystery so far? Where the above photo was taken and when. I am seriously considering breaking out the face recognition to try to match up faces. My best guess is my great-grandmother’s family. I am sure I’ll figure it out as I catalogue the stories of their families and organize more photos.
Then there’s this photo that thankfully my great-grandmother wrote on the back the following: Dave & Min Farnsworth. Dave was Susan’s brother…
That’s a start but what about their children? I am sure there are people related to them I don’t even know who would love this photo… So I go to the only place I know to find clues – Ancestry.com. I find Susan Jane Farnsworth on my family tree and then find her parents.
After locating her parents, I notice a green leaf on a profile and click on it to review more hints and find another person who has documented these people in their online family tree – I can see my Susan Farnsworth and also a brother named David.
After further exploration of the hints on other individual trees, I find that David did marry an Esther Minnie and they had ten children. The amazing thing is that the children in the photo match up perfectly with their oldest six children : Edna Alta, David Jr., Philo, Edwin, Lindon and Roy. The toddlers are dressed in kilts as was tradition with their heritage.
The more I studied their names and birth dates, it was easy to approximate the date of the photo to be about the Fall of 1896.
Another story unfolded as I looked at the names of the children, The youngest son on Minnie’s lap is named Roy. On their family record it shows a son named Ray and another named Roy born on the same day. At first I thought it was a duplicate record for the same child, yet after further research it was revealed that Ray had passed away just a few weeks after being born. Roy & Ray were twins. I have had this photo for years and now after a little digging around I know so much more of the story.
It is truly amazing that because of technology and websites that people are collaborating and sharing and together we are all learning more about our roots. It may seem a tiny thing, but now I feel like I KNOW these people. I think of Minnie and how different and more difficult her life must have been. I think of the grief of having twins and then losing one. I think of the morning before this photo – getting those two wiggly toddler boys dressed in their kilts…
This photo has become more than a group of faces to me – these are REAL people who lived and I’m related to them! 
I think sometimes we live so much in the day (as we should) that we can’t see the importance of our lives – who we are – what we are learning and growing and doing right now – and how much that will mean to future generations.
I’m 100% positive that on the day this photo was taken Minnie never envisioned a great-great-great niece searching the internet digging up clues to discover more about her family. Yet I did, and I loved every second of it and I’m so grateful to know more about these sweet people.
I know life gets busy and it seems so mundane and not worth recording. And yet I still have to ask you – whose Minnie will you be?
Kayla, these are amazing photos. I love the school house one because everyday photos are so rare back then. It’s amazing that you were able to find out so much about Minnnie and her family. I’ve never used ancestry.com but I’ve heard such great stories of finding information. It’s on my “to do” list, but thanks for the inspiration to try to make it happen sooner than later.
Thanks Kayla: I need to do this as well…..I am the “keeper” of family heritage photos in my family. Loved this post.
Kayla…soooooo helpful for me…I am in the process of doing My Story including Heritage…so this tutorial is wonderful to me! Thanks so much
This is so interesting to me, Kayla, not only because I’m working on my family’s heritage photos too, but also because my paternal grandmother’s name was Minnie. She died from pneumonia when my dad was only six (1929) after losing her only daughter (age 10) to diphtheria a few months earlier. She left four young boys including a 10 month old baby to be raised by their father, who, I have to add, did a very good job with them!
Good luck with your project!
Wow, love your family pics. I noticed a son named Philo Farnsworth. I have a neighbor who is related to Philo T Farnsworth who invented the TV. Did your family live in Utah? Is it possibly the same person? Wouldn’t that be an exciting coincidence! =0)
Thanks.
My great grandmother was cousins with the Philo T. Farnsworth who invented TV. He comes through a different family in this line but they are the same family. 
Her grandfather was Philo T. Farnsworth whose brother Reuben Farnsworth was the grandfather of Philo T. Farnsworth (named after his uncle who was my great-great grandfather). Small world indeed! 
Thank you so much for going through all the trouble to do the lightroom class. I am still going through it and you have helped me so much. I love your teaching style. I am interested in your Finding Photo Flow class, but cannot find where to sign up. Can you please direct me?
Thanks,
Allison
Thanks Allison!
You can find it at Http://findingphotoflow.com
My husband takes care of the Ancestry.com but I scan and archive the photos. I am taking FPF – just beginning – so it is a good time to ask. I am struggling with how to tag/name my 14,000 plus photos. I am thinking I should separate my current photos and the historical ones. I have iphoto/aperture (not real comfortable with it yet) and PSE 10. Could you point me to the correct folder/lesson in FPF.
NOTE: I have most of my photos archived both on DVD and on one of two external drives I am struggling with the fact that I ran out of space on my mac book so archived some photos on one of the external drives as a library and started a new library. In my new library which I brought over to my new imac I have some edited and duplicates of the photos in the archived library. MY DILEMA: I have exported a portion of them (can’t deal with all at once) to a folder on my desk top and have made a DVD copy of those. They need to be brought into iphoto and merged with the ones in the current library. I do have an old version of duplicate annialator on my machine but…
If you think I should post this in the FPF chat room I can do that. Thanks, Jackie
No problem – I help wherever I can – I am going to share helpful links for you – you will have to login to the classroom to see them – but hopefully they will be helpful. If not, please email me at photoflowconcierge at gmail.com and I will gladly respond.
The first link is for the PSE Organizer (I like to call it the Adobe Elements Organizer) Software manual. There are four videos – you can see each of them by clicking on the horizontal lines right below the top header image. You can find them here.
iPhoto Software Manual with four videos here.
Aperture Software Manual with five videos here.
If the filenames are the same, most photo libraries will not import duplicate photos. You will need to make sure you set the preferences for each program to “not import duplicates.”
Hope that helps!
Thank you so much for sharing this, Kayla. It has helped me to see that even though I have lost my parents and
grandparents and I inherited photos, I do not have to let their stories and history die. You truly have give me
hope.
Jan
GodBlessAmerica