Camera Genealogica (Part 1)

30 Jul 2025

Faye Coble lived for 103 years. A happy accident that she was born in 1898 — that meant that she technically lived in three centuries. She was the first daughter born to Gertrude Coble (née Harper) on a farm not far outside Kansas City, Missouri. Unfortunately, Faye was quite young when her father died in a Kansas City hotel from gas asphyxiation. (Ironically, the hotel would be one of the first in Kansas City to get electric lighting — too late though for Robert Coble.)

Gertrude would marry again (a Calhoun) and it is from that second marriage that my own grandfather would be born. Faye was my grandfather’s half-sister.

Faye too would eventually marry. As I said at the start Faye lived a very long time but she would never have children. And so when Faye died in 2001 somehow all of her photos and photo albums ended up ultimately in a suitcase that followed one of my grandfather’s daughters from the midwest to a trailer in Eloy, Arizona. And there the photos sat under a spare bed until I showed up one day in 2015 to visit her, my Aunt Mary.

I’m very much into genealogy. I think though after this suitcase was graciously passed along to me I came to realize that my interest was more specifically as a kind of “photograph genealogist”. I found that I was little interested in taking the family tree back to when we came across the Atlantic to settle in North America. I saw very quickly that the lives of my ancestors, as captured in the photos, was what appealed to me. I think it goes without saying that a face, a pose in a photograph speaks more loudly about that person and their life than a scribble in a church record about a Baptism performed in 1783 (for example). And I think I wanted to know who they were (to the degree anyone can of course).

The Studio

It is very important to me to digitize old family photos and soon enough I would begin to scan in what turned out to be about 800 photos. Further, I would try to identify who was in the photos, determine approximate dates for the photos, put them in something of a chronological order. I spent perhaps a year or so on that first pass through the photos.

Why digitize the photos? The answer is probably obvious. It does no harm to the original and captures or preserves the photo in its current state. Time may continue to ravage the photo but the digital version will remain unchanged in the coming decades.

Further, we can digitally restore the digital copy without touching the original photo in any way. In fact, we can digitally restore a copy of the scanned image — leaving a “virgin” copy of the digital file unmolested. Apple’s Photos app always keeps a reference to the original file — applying your edits on top of it but always having the means to get back the original scan.

In more than a few cases I believe I have even restored old photos to a state better than the original. Specks and dirt that were on the negative (and so also in the original print) were removed — the overall image levels often balanced better than the original prints as well.

It’s a sad fact too that as the family tree adds branches, family photo collections and photo albums either get broken up across the children or perhaps go to only one of the offspring. In time they may disappear altogether — lost in a flooded basement or perhaps an estate sale eventually lands them in a basket of random old photos in an antique store. Digital copies cost nothing and can be sent far and wide via email to all interested relatives. And I have done that.

And of course since a digital copy can be stored in “the cloud” we no longer need fear fire, flood or theft of our family photo collections. But I don’t just trust cloud services — I also have hard drive backups of all my photos should the cloud go away someday. And as I say, I have also passed along copies to relatives who might also serve as some kind of back up.

And then there are sites like Ancestry.com and Find-A-Grave.com where you can upload photos for relatives or as a “memorial”. I have uploaded everything I have for the appropriate relatives online. Find-A-Grave has a limit of twelve photos so I have chosen only the best of the best for that site.

How long will these sites be around? Who knows. But I suspect either way that all these photos will count as “assets” for the site and would be something of a prize for perhaps a future site that might want to be reborn out of the ashes.

And as it happens I have come back in contact with an otherwise lost relative by way of having posted photos to Find-A-Grave of a relative that we had in common. “How did you get all those photos of my husband’s mother?” read the first message I got from her. Later a photo exchange netted an excellent photo of Faye no one on my side of the family had ever seen.

I may touch on other interesting things I found on my journey, but in this post I want to talk a bit about what I learned about the quality of the photos that I found. It turns out that it was an interesting slice of technology — observing the photograph and the "consumer" so to speak across a century in Middle America.

And to that end, let’s focus on Gertrude. She has the honor of the being in the oldest photo in the collection. In fact, she is on a tintype photo. It is roughly the size of a credit card and, sadly, like an old license plate, it had been bent in half at some point. I actually don’t recall if I was the one that unfolded it or if it was already unfolded when I found it in the suitcase, but there is an unfortunate metal crease that makes it difficult to scan correctly. I am not going to attempt to flatten it any further.

The moment I studied this photo of a young girl, who turned out to be Gertrude, somehow across 135 years, my heart went out to her. Her face and her expression look so much like my oldest daughter when she was also young.

Looking closer at the photo I see the simple wooden floor of the studio where the photo would have been taken. Also visible is the cast iron stand behind her — no doubt holding her still while the cap is off the lens exposing the collodion and silver nitrate to the scene. She is dressed in probably her best clothes, boots … a ribbon in her hair.

The next photo I found of Gertrude I date to around 1887 or so. No longer a tintype, this print was on paper. Still a studio photo — the photographer no doubt was now using a gelatin dry plate method. We still see the iron stand — perhaps her one arm behind her is holding it to steady herself. It may well be the same studio from the earlier photo — apparently able to carpet the floorboards now.

The family portrait (above) is the next one with Gertrude (standing, far right). I date it to about the 1890’s. A funny thing happened though in the photo collection: the photos I have of Gertrude from this point on are (with only two exceptions) no longer taken in the studio. Sometime after 1900 (around 1910 or so), it seems the consumer camera had arrived in the (now Calhoun) family. The quality of the home photos would not equal the studio’s of course, but I begin to see where the family lived and worked.

I should say that my dating of the photos comes almost exclusively from knowing when Gertrude was born (1876) and then guessing her age in the photos. I could easily be off by several years though.

Amateur Photographers

An early photo taken with a consumer camera shows Gertrude and her teenage daughter, Faye. Fortunately the print was labeled: “Oak St, 1914” (front) and “Faye Vandiver & Gertrude Calhoun, her mother” (on the back). A city directory indicates that Gertrude’s oldest son (from her first, deceased husband) lived on Oak St. in 1914. Also records show that her son’s daughter, Roberta, was born in 1914. Perhaps mother and sister have stopped by to see the new baby or to see how the prospective parents are getting on?

Also interesting to note when cameras left the studio: who took this photo? Who is missing? While it might have been Gertrude’s oldest son, it could perhaps have been my young grandfather (although he would have been about ten years old at the time).

I understand that Calhoun senior (above, far right) decided he was a watermelon farmer about the time that The Great War began. I think the boy almost in the very center of the photo is my grandfather — Gertrude and Calhoun senior’s only son together. Gertrude, standing between in her light-colored dress is looking down.

It’s interesting to see everyone dressed as they would for any ordinary day — even if they did otherwise pose this photo for the camera. Seeing also the farm, their car — in a rural setting. Photography and how it relates to genealogy is getting more interesting. The photos are telling more of a story.

And above another photo taken on the same day (everyone seems to be wearing the same clothes). Likely the same farm then.

To give you some idea of how bad some of the photos are — and how far you can go with them. Here is an example. The sepia tone portion is the actual photo as scanned in. Pasted over (in straight monochrome) is a cleaned up portion.

I used only Apple Photos on a Macbook. First the scanned image is made monochrome. Perhaps some would prefer to keep the original sepia? It’s a personal decision. For me, I am going for something close to how the original would have looked (sepia can be added back later, ha ha).

Adjusting the levels is the most important adjustment. I play with combinations of Brilliance, Exposure, Highlights, Shadows and Black Point. I’m trying to bring out the most detail — not cratering the blacks, not blowing out the whites.

A little Definition is nice. Also rolling in a little Grain (under Black & White) can add a uniformity to the already-existing noise of the photo.

Lastly, I have been known to spend an hour or more cleaning/retouching the photo. This is where cracks and scratches are removed. Small flecks of white (on the original negative?) and black spots (on the print?) are removed.

It is a challenge to do this in a manner that does not draw attention to itself. You are trying to make the smallest amount of change that still remedies the flaw. My own technique I call “The Squeaky Wheel Method”. In short, you tackle the most egregious part of the photo first. You move around the photo then, going after the next most the most egregious part of the photo. At some point you are making increasingly modest and minute changes — and at some point you quit altogether and call it “good enough”.

Cameras

I have no negatives from these old photos — only the prints. Nonetheless I’m sure if I go down the rabbit hole I can probably make educated guesses as to which cameras were used to take many of the photos. Many of these early prints are fairly small — suggesting they were made as a contact print from the negatives. Therefore, the size of the photo may well narrow the field down considerably.

There are in fact exactly three photos in the whole collection that manage to capture a camera in the photo itself.

Faye (far left in the photo above) would marry and, leaving her mother behind in Kansas City, would move to Denver, Colorado. The photo above was taken in 1924. The camera sitting on the lap of the woman next to Faye is a rather fancy model. It is a collapsible, bellows type camera. Perhaps some version of the Kodak “pocket” folding Camera.

Faye had in her large photo collection photos from her husband as well. The woman above is the sister of Faye’s husband. The camera she holds looks to be some sort of Kodak Brownie camera — perhaps a No. 2.

Weirdly, about twenty-five years later another photo appears in Faye’s collection. Can you spot the camera? And that is an older Susie (2nd from left). Who knows if it is the same camera.

And that’s it — the only cameras I know to have been around the family at the time. I can, as I say, try to exhaustively take measurements of each print, record the date (if known), indicate the subjects. Perhaps I can start then to group photos likely from the same camera — determine who (likely) owned what model camera and for what years… Challenging but perhaps there would come some insights that way. There are in fact a good number of mysteries still within many of the photos. Many I have no date, many I can only guess where they were taken, sometimes still not knowing who everyone in the photo is.

The Roaring Twenties

On one hand, the 1920’s saw Gertrude file for divorce from her husband (in 1925) due to his infidelity (Gertrude having instructed her daughter Faye to note how long senior spent when delivering groceries to a particular widow in the neighborhood). At the same time we see Gertrude hitting the road in a series of vacation photos that follow — perhaps enjoying her new-found freedom.

Gertrude may have been missing her daughter Faye, who married in 1918 and moved to Denver in 1921. But her beloved son (my grandfather) would grow to a man and begin a job working at a bank.

The three figures on the left are the family of Gertrude’s first son. Young Roberta is older now (she was the little girl eating watermelon earlier), dressed in the height of fashion in the center of the photo. Gertrude (2nd from right) stands next to her son, my grandfather — perhaps dressed in his banker clothes. Sadly, the Great Depression comes a few years later and my grandfather’s bank job is just one of many casualties of that time.

Dutiful Daughter

By 1930, Gertrude’s daughter, Faye, is married and living in Denver, and her youngest son is also married and starting his own young family. Perhaps not surprising, since this is after all from Faye’s photo albums, many of the photos of Gertrude from the 1930’s onward show her on various trips with Faye — often, of course, in and around Colorado.

For some time, Gertrude remained in Kansas City, living alone. Her youngest son (my grandfather) soon had three daughters (unlike Faye who would never have a child). Gertrude kept busy watching the little girls when her son and his wife were unable to. Still, Gertrude appears to have made it out to Denver quite often to visit Faye.

By 1948 when the above photo was taken, Gertrude had become quite old (72 years old). Perhaps she was no longer able to care for herself because the city directory shows her living in Denver around that time.

A Sublime Sadness

The last photo I am aware of showing Gertrude is the one above. It was difficult to date it. “1957” was written on the front of the photo but crossed out — written next to it “1956”. The stamp on the edge of the print, says “May 1957”. But that stamp was from when the print was made, not when the photo was taken. And besides, Gertrude died in January of 1957.

Gertrude appears to be looking at the camera. Perhaps Faye’s husband took the photo? Faye looks a little distracted — still holding her purse as though she has somewhere to be. I believe this photo is the last photo of her with her mother. But how could she have known then?

I began this post suggesting I would talk about the changes in consumer camera technology over the 20th Century as reflected in a collection of family photos that spanned over 100 years. I only partially did that here. I chose Gertrude initially because she was in the oldest photo — the tintype from 1880. But as it turned out she did not live long enough to see the family photos transition to color and so I was unable to show that significant development. I think though that part way through writing this I consciously hijacked my initial premise to pursue instead another one.

Memento Mori

My grandfather, in addition to having three daughters, eventually raised a son: my father. I was born six years after Gertrude died — obviously I never met Gertrude. In fact, I barely even heard about her growing up. When I eventually asked my father about her (he too would have been quite young when she was alive) he only said that she was one of the most dour women he had ever met. And you can kind of deduce that anyway from the photos. Perhaps she was never really very happy.

When I started this genealogy journey and discovered Gertrude by way of the photos, I confess that I was drawn to her life. I am not sure why exactly. On one hand she doesn’t seem to have lead a particularly interesting life. But I mentioned at the start that the appeal of genealogy to me was never predicated on finding out that we are related to a Scottish clan lord (or Vice President, John C. Calhoun, for god’s sake).

I think seeing the ordinary lives of ordinary people is much more sublime. Gertrude’s life could be my mother’s, or mine. Do you know what I mean? Living life is sometimes such a slow thing — but that suitcase of photos revealed many lives across a century — to be viewed as quickly as you wish to flip through the images. First there was that oldest photo of that young (frightened?) girl in the murky tintype. She grows up in photos, has a family of her own. Her children also grow and either raise their own families, or scatter to other parts of the world. And of course she keeps getting older too.

I picked only a dozen or so photos for this post — but there are about two-hundred photos of Gertrude. In many of them she is on some vacation or another. There’s one where she appears to be showing off a new dress for the camera. There were plenty of photos of her in the field, feeding chickens — doing rural things like that. Plenty of photos of her with various other family members — perhaps at a picnic or family get-together? While I didn’t want to bore you with all of them, for me they add additional moments to her life. (I also have a couple letters that she wrote her daughter, Faye — which I have also scanned.)

I wonder to myself what it means; what her life meant — what life means. I know, I’m veering into sophomoric territory but I make no apologies for it because it is, I think, fundamentally what has drawn me to genealogy. Memento Mori.

It is on one hand frightening to contemplate how your own life also ends: with a headstone. All our lives do.

And yet on the other hand I am also humbled when I consider all my “kin” that have also lead lives, raised families, found comfort in friends, travelled — hopefully aged gracefully. I’m reminded that I am just like them — no better (hopefully no worse). Welcome to life?

Memento Vivere

And so I remember them. I try to understand them — know them a little? And I know too that I will someday join them. Perhaps in reflection I then remind myself to make the best of this time. And hopefully I try to be a better husband, father, brother, son, friend.