Family Group Dag - Approx Date?

I have here a recent online discovery - a Dag of my 3X great grand aunt, her husband and son, likely taken in Sacramento CA (where they lived beginning in 1849.) The online source does not have a date, but can you tell from the clothing about when it might have been taken? The husband and wife were both born about 1805 and the son in 1838.

 

I think mid-1850s. This is based not only on the clothing, but also on the styles of the mat and preserver (the brass-colored items surrounding the photo).

Something about the woman's clothing has aspects a little earlier than that... but since she is an older person, it's quite possible that she was wearing clothing somewhat out of date. If the young man was born in 1838, I don't think he could be younger than about 16 in this photo.

 

And, congratulations on the discovery!

 

Thank you, Fig!!

It's been a very exciting couple of days. I first got a whiff of Aunt Rosina's presence in CA earlier this week - a long, long way from her childhood home on Long Island. The evidence started piling up quickly though and then this afternoon after realizing that her husband and son are both documented in the Sacramento Biographical "Great Register" as "Pioneers", I was checking out the online collections at the California State Library in Sacramento. Wham!! This picture, one her son in maturity, and the son's wife.

And here I was thinking I would have to go there to see what they had.

 

Very well preserved, isn't it? I wonder how long the State Library has had it. They supposedly also have the son's piano.

Here's the cabinet card of the son in later life.

 

The facial hair is .... distinctive.

One thing I didn't notice before because I was trying to figure out the date... the wife and son each have a hand on one of the husband's/father's shoulders. That is a nice touch.

 

It is! You know, I can't remember seeing a photo this old having such "relaxed" and natural subjects.

The hands did make it difficult to get a cropped version of just the father for his profile page on my tree.

 

Were your relatives prominent in Sacramento history?

 

"but can you tell from the clothing about when it might have been taken?"

Winter!

 

"Look Ma, No Hands" does this help?

 

Thanks, elarnia!

Did you use Photoshop or Paint to do that? I use MS Office for basic editing - crop, resize, contrast, etc. But I don't think there is a function that removes things.

 

Not really, (or at least not that I have found yet) although the son's descendants through the one daughter of his who married seem to have had a large farming operation in the general area.

 

Was the father involved in the California Gold Rush? Since they moved out there at that time, just wondering...

 

I assume so. He was an immigrant from England, arriving in NY about 1826 at age 21 (if you can believe the info he gave in 1866 when the "great register" was first taken.) The area in which they lived when the son was born (Milford, Pike County, PA) was a coal mining area at the time (just west of the NJ border.) By 1840 they had moved on to Mineral Point, Iowa County, Wisconsin Territory, where his census entry says he was involved in mining. He was naturalized there in 1841. (I found out that the area was largely settled by Cornish miners, so it may be that he was from that part of England.)

1849 arrival in CA does seem a likely Gold Rush connection, but in the 1850 census he gave his occupation as "merchant." By 1860, he was farming and the son continued that work.

I need to do some more searching to see if I can find newspaper entries like the father's obit (he died in 1868.) The index card says he died "near Lake House." Does anyone know why that's important to mention?

 

What a great discovery! I like that the woman appears to be smiling, which seems to be uncommon in old photos.

 

I use Paint.net (an open source paint program) - it has a great clone tool for this sort of thing - cheers

 

Thanks for the tip, elarnia. I'll look into it.