Ancestry Magazine

The physical characteristics of your ancestors may be difficult to determine without a photograph, but some sources you wouldn’t normally consider might hold the answers.

John Ring was a good-looking man of dark complexion. He stood five and a half feet tall, was stocky in build, and had an oval face. His nose and mouth were regular but rather large, imbuing his countenance with openness. His blue eyes were alert and intelligent. John kept his dark brown hair short and flat, with no hint of wave or curl, and parted it severely on the left. The ends of his mustache, shaped like an inverted v, brushed the corners of his mouth.

But this portrait of John Ring, gathered from a carte de visite and his military enlistment record, is incomplete. This was John Ring around 1890 when he was a healthy young man of twenty-one. A later photograph, examined in light of his military pension file, will change this picture dramatically and tragically.

While focusing on names, dates, places, and events, it is easy for family historians to neglect to describe how their ancestors looked. Photographs add a great deal of visual interest to the family narrative, of course, but daguerreotypes and sepia-toned cartes de visite do not show whether the sitter’s eyes were blue or brown, whether the complexion was ruddy or swarthy. Moreover, photographs capture the appearance of an ancestor at a particular moment in time, in childhood or old age, for example, and people change over time. Sometimes, too, an ancestor’s life exper iences changed his or her looks rather quickly and dramatically, as with John Ring. What is more, long before the age of digitization, photographs could be manipulated by inserting images of people who were not present or by juxtaposing portraits of two people taken at different times.

To portray your ancestors accurately in the family narrative, you must combine information derived from photographs with information derived from written descriptions found in historical sources. Even when no photograph at all exists, written descriptions allow you to represent for future generations what an ancestor looked like.

Combining Sources
The illusion of John Ring as a strapping young man is transformed with a second portrait photograph taken about fifteen years later and with medical reports in his military pension file. The file holds a simple line drawing of a man’s body, which was used by the examining surgeon to indicate where the veteran suffered injury or damage. Many pension files include such a picture; it shows, for example, where the serviceman was shot, if he lost an arm or leg to amputation, or which organs suffered damage by malaria or yellow fever. It allows you to contrast your ancestor’s physical state before his service with his physical state afterward. This heightens the drama of his life story, and gives the reader a better appreciation for the man as a real person. Did the veteran need a cane or crutch to walk? Did he have an arm he could not use? Or a leg that dragged? Or perhaps did he have a visible scar?

In 1903, when John Ring came home from the Pacific, he looked much older than thirty-four. Three years of fighting in the Philippine Insurrection had taken their toll. But it was not on any battlefield that this Private had been wounded; rather, it was malaria and dysentery that sent him to the hospital on two occasions. He also suffered from chronic bronchitis, tonsillitis, and stomach trouble, and John’s illn essess did not end with his discharge from the military. The dysentery continued, and the malaria recurred, leading to further complications and a bad heart.

A photograph of John Ring, taken with his bride about the time of their marriage in 1905, shows a man who has suffered. Though he is only thirty-six years old, he appears middle-aged. His face is gaunt, making his chevron mustache look a bit too bushy, a bit too droopy on the ends.

To describe John Ring, information was combined from four different sources: 1) carte de visite; 2) military enlistment record; 3) wedding portrait; and 4) military pension file. One or two sources alone would not have done him justice. The more sources you find, the fuller and more accurate the ancestral portrait will be.

Using Artifacts
Thanks primarily to military records, descriptions of men tend to be a lot more plentiful than descriptions of women. To paint a word portrait of an ancestress, you may have to delve into some unusual sources and pick up on every little hint they offer.

The earliest known photograph of Franziska Schmitt Noeth dates from about 1888, when she was about thirty-two years old. She appears average in stature, with regular and attractive facial features. Two long braids of brown hair wrap around the crown of her head in traditional Bavarian fashion. That her hair was brown is obvious from a watch chain that belonged to her husband, Andreas; family tradition maintains that the chain was woven from Franziska’s hair. That, too, was a custom of their native Bavaria.

In this case, a treasured family heirloom, a watch chain, contributed to the description of Franziska. Other artifacts your ancestors owned, handled, used, maybe even made may provide clues to their physical stature and appearance. A bonnet or dress or evening gloves of an ancestress may reveal how petite she was. A forefather’s military uniform would reveal his stature. Reading spectacles wo uld indicate weak eyes (as well as the fact that your ancestor knew how to read). If you have inherited the well-used corn-cob pipe of a forefather, chances are he was often seen with that pipe gripped between his teeth. You want to include it in your description of him. Likewise, a tortoise-shell hair comb would mean your ancestress had quite a bit of hair to hold in place. Don’t overlook the clues to an ancestor’s appearance hidden in family heirlooms.

Using Cultural Histories
From a cultural history of Bavaria you can learn that Franziska’s hairstyle reflects precisely the style typical of Bavarian women in the second half of the nineteenth century. Libraries have cultural histories for foreign countries as well as the United States, and these books often describe hairstyles and clothing typical at different periods in history. Had we not had that photograph of Franziska, we could still have written that she probably kept her hair in long braids coiled and secured on the back of her head, since that was customary in the place and time of her youth.

No one today knows when Franziska presented Andreas with the strands of her hair, whether it was before they married, as a token of their betrothal, or later. Either way, the watch chain was a prized possession of Andreas’ during his lifetime, and has since been passed on to his eldest great-grandson, who treasures it today.

From a photograph of the Noeth family taken in 1901 you could know Andreas considered the watch chain a prized possession. A trip to the photographer’s studio was a rare and special occasion; the portrait would be preserved for generations. Surely the Noeth family dressed in their finest attire, and there, displayed proudly, draped across Andreas’ stomach, is the watch chain. The same photograph shows a middle-aged Franziska wearing her hair the way she wore it as a young lady recently immigrated from Bavaria.

Portraying Franziska Schmit t Noeth, therefore, required a total of five sources: 1) a carte de visite; 2) a pocket watch chain; 3) oral family tradition; 4) a cultural history; and 5) a family portrait. Discovering the physical traits of female ancestors is usually more challenging than learning how a male ancestor looked.

Beware Manipulated Photographs
The oval photograph shown on the next page contains an image of my great-grandparents, Giuseppa and Antonio Girgenti. At first glance, the portrait appears perfectly ordinary, but closer inspection raises questions. The man looks too young, more like the woman’s son than her husband. Besides that, his head in comparison to hers is too big. What is going on here? Fortunately, my grandmother explained to me when I was a child why this picture of her parents looks odd.

My great-grandparents were born and married in Sicily. Antonio died there in 1899, leaving Giuseppa with five children and no means of support. Life was a struggle, and one by one, when they reached adulthood, the children emigrated to America. In 1927 they sent for their elderly mother to join them. With households of their own, they wanted a picture of Mamma and Papa above the sofa in the parlor. They hired a local photographer–it must have been around 1929–to capture Giuseppa’s likeness and paste it next to a photograph of Antonio taken prior to his death in 1899. Voilà! Despite a discrepancy of thirty years, husband and wife are back together again, side by side, within an ornate oval frame.

Beware. This was not an uncommon practice among immigrants of modest means. Sometimes, too, the likeness of a deceased family member might be “inserted” craftily into a group portrait. Also common were post-mortem photographs, particularly of infants and children. Written descriptions in historical sources may not always be accurate, but photographs can be misleading sometimes, too. When utilizing old photographs as evide nce of an ancestor’s physical traits, it is a good idea to use a magnifying glass and strive for honest precision.

Since Giuseppa Girgenti immigrated in 1927, a second source helps to describe her in the family narrative. Beginning in 1906, ships’ passenger lists contain a physical description for every passenger on board that includes height, complexion, color of hair and eyes, and marks of identification. Physical descriptions in the passenger arrival records make frequent reference to scars and moles; just how thorough you want to be in painting your ancestors’ portraits is up to you!

Giuseppa Girgenti was a handsome woman, square-jawed and dark-complexioned, with strong features and brown eyes and hair. She stood about five feet three, and as the years went by, her full head of hair lightened not to gray, but to pure white. Her white hair emphasized her earrings. All the days of her long life, Giuseppa was never seen without earrings; each lobe had been pierced when she was an infant in Sicily.

To describe Giuseppa Girgenti, therefore, three sources were used: 1) a “composite” photograph; 2) a ship’s passenger list; and 3) a cultural history of Sicily.

Other Possible Sources
Physical descriptions of our ancestors may be found in other sources as well, including passport applications. From the applications of the 1790s through those of the twentieth century, passport applications always contain the physical statistics of the applicant. For instance, when twenty-two-year-old Ezra W. Fletcher, Jr., a native of Providence, Rhode Island, applied to the State Department for a passport in 1843, he had an “English” stature, standing five feet six and one-half inches tall. His forehead was “rather high,” his eyes hazel, his nose, mouth, and chin were all “medium,” his face “rather thin,” and his complexion dark. Ezra had black hair. Photographs were not affixed to passp ort applications until 1915.

Beginning in the late nineteenth century, some naturalization records include a physical description of the petitioner. Ole Gustav Hagstrom, for example, who petitioned for citizenship in North Dakota in 1910, was a thirty-three-year-old white man, five feet eight inches tall, light complected, with gray eyes, brown hair, and no visible distinguishing marks. His appearance bespeaks most appropriately his pure Swedish heritage.

World War I draft registration cards provide a sketchy description, but even a sketchy description is better than nothing. In 1917, George Ring, the nephew of the John Ring discussed earlier, was a twenty-six-year-old Caucasian of medium height and build with brown eyes and black hair. World War I draft registration cards record any physical condition that might have disqualified your ancestor from serving in the military. George Ring had a “ruptured left ear drum.”

A physical trait may pop up in almost any kind of document. One ancestress of mine drowned when the riverboat she was traveling on sank in the Ohio River in 1873. Three days after the disaster, when the unfortunate woman’s body washed ashore several miles down river, the coroner’s report included this single identifying detail: “She had dark hair.”

Of course, if you discover a seventeenth-century oil portrait of an ancestor, or a delicate paper silhouette of an eighteenth-century ancestor, I hardly need tell you how to pull that into your family narrative. Most family historians, however, are not so blessed. Our searches uncover no likenesses at all, and no prose portraits, either. But even then, ancestral descriptions may still be possible.

Suggesting Physical Traits
In the absence of any image or description whatsoever, physical characteristics may sometimes be suggested from an ancestor’s ethnic heritage and the appearance of close family members. In such cases, be very carefu l how you phrase the description.

Thorough research has failed to bring to light any photograph or physical description of Barbara Miller. Nevertheless, it is likely that she was a woman of average height and slender frame, for that was the stature common to her family. A photograph showing her father and elder brother, as well as the physical characteristics typical of Lorrainians in general, suggest how Barbara herself may have looked. The Millers shared prominent cheekbones and pointy chins; brown eyes, small and bright; and a narrow and straight nose. Their skin had an olive tint to it, and a smattering of faint freckles crossed the bridge of their nose. Barbara’s hair, wreathed atop her head or worn in a chignon, would have had the deep lustrous hue of chestnuts. Contemporaries would have called her a handsome woman.

To suggest the physical appearance of Barbara Miller, therefore, we used two sources: 1) photograph showing her father and brother; and 2) physical descriptions of Lorrainians in general.

Illustrating your family narrative with old photographs is not sufficient for describing your ancestors. To paint full and accurate portraits of them in words, you must combine the detail you find in photographs with information you find in written descriptions. The sources you find will depend on who your ancestors were, what records and artifacts they left behind, what oral family tradition has been passed on, and what their cultural heritage was. Happily, not every picture you unveil will turn out to be as tragic as John Ring’s: The year following his marriage, at the age of thirty-seven, John Ring died. His widow collected his pension for the rest of her ninety-two years.

John Philip Colletta, Ph.D., is a faculty member of the Institute of Genealogy and Historical Research at Samford University, Birmingham, Alabama, and the Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy, Salt Lake City, Utah. He also conducts workshops for the National Archives and teache s genealogy courses at universities in the Washington, D.C., area. He has authored numerous articles as well as three books: They Came in Ships, Finding Italian Roots, and Only a Few Bones, which tells the whole story of his carpetbag ancestors of New York and Mississippi, the Rings.