Until I saw the entry on the Church History Library Catalog the other day, I had no idea there was any uncertainty about the identity of the woman in the following photograph, but the catalog identifies the picture as “a black woman, possibly Jane Manning James.”

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As I have worked in the field of family and community history I have developed the following questions when making picture identifications:

What is the provenance of the picture? (Who owns it and why? What is the chain of ownership?)

Is the picture labeled? Who made the identification?

Is the technology appropriate to the time it was supposed to have been taken?

Were there daguerreotypists or photographers operating in the area at the time?

Is the photographer or studio identified on the picture or on an enclosing folder? If so, when was the photographer or studio in business?

Who are the possible subjects?

Are there any known pictures of the supposed subjects? Are there family resemblances to any close relatives?

Do the ages of the people in the photograph seem to be accurate?

What can the clothing tell us about when the picture was taken?

What other details help locate the picture and identify the subjects?

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You can read about this process in the following case studies:

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When George A. Smith served as Church historian, he collected a number of photographs, and the probable picture of Jane Manning James is one of the many pictures now held in the George A. Smith Collection at the Church History Library with digital copies of the pictures provided online.

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Besides a picture of Elijah Abel, the other picture of an African-American in the collection has the contemporaneous caption, “Isaac. for many years in the service of Pres Young.” The library assumed this meant Isaac James, the husband of Jane James. There’s also the possibility that it was an elusive (and possibly nonexistent) former slave named Isaac Graham who was supposed to have been Brigham Young’s carriage driver.

If the second picture is Isaac James, it would suggest that the first picture is Jane James, but other possibilities for the subject would include Nancy Bankhead, Betsy Brown Flewellen, Martha Crosby Flake, Nancy Dennis, Chloe Ewell, Liz Flake Rowan, Hannah Graham, Esther Perkins, Venus Redd, Chaney Redd, Jane Harris Dykes, Martha Grice, Susan Leggroan, and perhaps others. I have ruled out Biddy Mason.

However, a comparison of this picture to known pictures of Jane Manning James suggests that it could very well be her. Note the shape of the eyes, nose, mouth, eyebrows, creases from nose to sides of mouth, space between nose and upper lip, shape of forehead, distance from eyebrows to hairline, etc.

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Do you think the pictures are of the same woman? (Note that different technologies can result in mirror images, so left-right side differences may need to be taken into account.)

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Does anyone know of the existence of another original copy of the first picture? Did the James or any related families own a copy?

Do you have any mysterious pictures in your family collections? Do you have personal photographs you should label before your family forgets the names of the subjects?

[Added picture, from Salt Lake Herald, July 6, 1897]

Sources

Woman, possibly Jane Manning James, PH 5962, b0001, folder 25, item 8, George A. Smith photograph collection. Church History Library, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah. Picture straightened and cropped.

Man identified as Isaac, servant of Brigham Young, PH 5962, b0001, folder 25, item 4, George A. Smith photograph collection. Church History Library, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah. Picture straightened and cropped.

Jane Manning James among Mormon pioneers, Salt Lake City, from the Church History Library by way of blackpast.org.