Almost everyone has old unlabeled photos that have been passed down to them through the years, right? Wishing you knew the people from days gone by looking back at you from the photo and saying with frustration “Well, it’s someone related to me I just don’t know who!”. With a lot of detective work, you can put names to faces in those old photos. I know, because I did it!
After finding a distant relative, Jill, on Ancestry.com in 2015, she offered to send a photo (below) that had been in her family stating “it includes Hendersons and Seybolds” and the infant being held in the middle was her grandmother, Ethel Seybold born in April 1916. That’s all she knew! Since my great grandmother Isabelle Hiller’s maiden name was Henderson and her brother James Clark Henderson married Katherine (Kate) Seybold I became very interested in knowing the identities of the 33 people in the photo.
To begin, of course, I knew it would be essential to have a somewhat complete family tree containing both direct and collateral line ancestors, luckily something I had already accomplished. A direct ancestor is a person directly related to you, parents, grandparents, etc. A collateral ancestor is someone related to you but not in your direct line, think aunts, uncles and cousins. Therefore a collateral line would be the family of this collateral ancestor. Of the 20 people I eventually identified in the photo only 4 are in my direct line!
Original Henderson/Seybold photo I obtained, with added numbers for identification purposes. Baby Ethel is #1. Circa, 1916.
My first goal was to date this photo. Looking at my family tree, I knew most of these people probably lived in Lake Odessa, Ionia County, Michigan and this was most likely the setting of the photo. Fortunately, Jill provided baby Ethel’s birthdate and since she appears to be about 6 months old I dated this photo October 1916. Furthermore, I made the assumption that Ethel was being held by her mother and quickly did a 1920 United States Census check and found her parents to be Herbert and Mattie (#2) Seybold. My second assumption was that Herbert (#31)was standing behind his wife.
Next, since I knew that my second cousin Dorothy grew up in Lake Odessa, in fact as the same house as our common 2 x great grandfather Christian Hiller, I asked her to look at the photo. Dorothy and I had talked on previous occasions and she stated that she had known some of the Hendersons as a child. Immediately, she recognized her father Calvin Hiller (#4) and his twin sister Connie (#3) (born 24 April 1914) as the two children standing in the foreground of the photo and their parents Archie (#24) and Jennie (#26) Hiller. Dorothy also said that she was “pretty sure” that right behind Calvin and Connie were their grandparents, Christian (#8) and Isabelle (#7) Hiller. Wow! I had only see one photo of Isabelle in her later years and had never seen a photo of Christian. Dorothy also recognized Mildred Henderson Hall (#14) daughter of James Clark Henderson mentioned above and the house to be “Aunt Mate and Uncle Archie’s” (More on these two later). So now, out of the 32 people, 10 are potentially identified. With so many individuals in this photo, I’m going to venture a guess it is a special occassion and not just a regular “Sunday dinner”. Noticing that Christian and Isabelle Hiller are front and center with 2 of their grandchildren and referring to my records, I see their 40th wedding anniversary was November 6, 1919. Maybe this was the occassion? Final photo dating is October or November 1916.
Looking at Mildred, she is holding the arm of the woman next to her, was this her mother, Kate? And if so, is her father John (#12) next to Kate (#13)? After looking at that whole row I realized that the eight members of the John C. Henderson Family were all there-I had seen their photos before. Quickly, I looked at a collection of Lake Odessa High School yearbook photos I remembered I had from a visit to the Lake Odessa Area Historical Society and Depot Museum and confirmed each child. Below are the children of John and Kate Henderson and their respective graduation dates.
Using these photos I confirmed Mildred and her siblings on the original photo, moving from Mildred right is Florence #15, Marian #16, Olive #17 and Ethel, (#18) and James (#25). That makes 15 now.
Knowing the year this Henderson/Hiller/Seybold family photo was taken, I reviewed their family respective genealogies and made a list of possible other individuals who were alive in 1916, mostly concerning myself with the Henderson and Hiller Families since they have members in my direct line.
The little boy on the right, next to Ethel Henderson, was completely throwing me off until I observed that the photo is somewhat divided by family- Seybold’s to the left and Henderson/Hiller to the right. That’s when I had a lightbulb moment and realized the little boy on the right was my grandfather, Don C. Hiller! And his father Ernest J. Hiller is behind him, wearing a cap. Further confirming this was the absence of Ernest’s wife, Martha Kenyon Hiller, who died in 1912.
Here’s Ethel and my grandfather, Don Hiller some years later, date unkown. Ethel and Don were about 6 months apart in age.
Moving on, I kept with the theory that this was Christian and Isabelle’s anniversary celebration and began a list of people most likely to attend. Since their sons, Ernest and Archie and their respective families have been identified next would be their individual siblings, since their parents had long died. Christian had 3 siblings alive at this time: Elizabeth in Grand Rapids, John in Illinois and Barbara in Lake Odessa. Looking at a photo I had of Barbara it was surprising to see she was absent since she was so close to Christian. Maybe she took the photo?I dismissed Elizabeth and John as living too far away.
Isabelle had 4 siblings still living: Agnes living in Ionia (in all likelihood too far away), Mary Jane known as “Aunt Mate” and Archie both in Lake Odessa and whose house was the setting for the photo, as well as the youngest Elizabeth known as Betsy. As I was positive Aunt Mate and Archie were in this photo, it wasn’t until I received another photo (below) from Hiller relatives in October 2017 that Aunt Mate was identified (#9) and then Archie (#10). Ethel and Don, seen standing behind them, seem to have a level of comfort with these two resting their hands on the back of Aunt Mate and Archie’s chair just like you would with an aunt and uncle. That makes 20.
The photo I used to identify Aunt Mate, courtesy of Hiller Family in Michigan.
It took 2 years of patience, determination and detective work to identify 20 people, so far. Although other projects have taken me away and I have not been actively working on this since October 2017, I believe all the Henderson/Hillers are accounted for and the remainder are Seybold family members, possibly Kate Seybold Henderson’s brother John (#3)and his wife Ada (#4)Seybold? Since identifying these people, incredibly, I have added names to other unlabeled photos given to me from Dorothy and the Hiller’s, like the one below. Go ahead, see if you can do it yourself using the above identifications. Hover your cursor over the photo for the answers. Then scroll to the bottom for an interesting addendum.
Back Row: Christian Hiller, his sister Barbara (although she was never identified in this post), 2 still identified.
Front Row: Mildred Henderson Hall, Isabelle Hiller and Aunt Mate.
Notice that Christian’s eyes are closed in these 2 photos? Two other photos I have of him are exactly the same. I was curious about this until receiving his Civil War pension records last year and learned his eyes were injured by locomotive smoke during the war.