What is allowed in the Portrait field?
If taken by the sole merit of the term "Portrait", only pictures or artist made portraits should be posted, and nothing else.
That not being the case, as everything under the sun seems to be posted in the portrait field, is there any consensus what is best in that field?
As an example, if I have a photograph of my ancestor, I definitely will plug that in. Lacking that, if I can next find a contemporary made portrait by a paint artist, I'll go with that. Then next is a sculpture/bust of the person (contemporary). Lacking these, if I can find a picture of their headstone, this is my next choice. Lacking all theses, I'll next go with photo of their name from some document that mentions them. Then lacking all these, I'll plug in a map for where they came from.
I cannot find any guidiance of any preferential order on the FS site.
Many of the portraits I see out there are not relevant to genealogy. Flowers, buildings, maps and flags. Or much lesser degree than headstones and documents.
Are there any “portrait” substitutes that I missed? Any consensus of an order of genealogical presidence for them?
Answers
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Hey, newbie here, but I think, some others from your family, or others your family have given permission to help with the family tree, may have put their own pictures, of flowers or maps, I'm still figuring out why one of my ancestors picture is a (color so, modern) picture of a chihuahua...
Hope this helps!
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If I don't have a photograph or painting of the person, I leave the portrait blank.
I haven't (yet) encountered such, but if someone put a map or flag in the portrait slot for an ancestor of mine, I'd remove it. If it got put back, I'd remove it again. Ditto for flowers, buildings, names, stones, documents, and so on.
I don't think there's any sort of official guidance on the question, and I certainly don't see much sign of widespread consensus: it all depends on the beliefs or preferences of the users who are most active in any particular section of the tree.
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I find it a bit annoying (but not terribly so) when I see pictures of flags, ships, or worse - family crests or coats of arms. Often, the ship is of a 15th century caravel when the ancestor immigrated in the 1800s, or the flag is of a modern country that didn't exist when the ancestor was born in that region. These crests and coats of arms are almost entirely bogus as explained here: https://ancestralfindings.com/real-truth-behind-coats-arms-family-crests/
Just my opinion.
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Thanks everyone!
Julia, I find that having something in the portrait field helps to legitimze that record over others that folks may merge into it. Also, when I veiw the following log, if the portrait goes missing from the log, it alerts me that a merge took place (or portrait removed), so red flags in for me. Also, if the document from which I attached the name from is important and needs to be brought to others attention, that helps.
They are many who merge away with out ever going beyond what they see at first glance (Name and photo).
But there are, like Eric mentions stuff put in the portrait field which simply are not relevant to genealogy at all. No more worth while then putting the flag of the UnitedStates on mine.
What would be nice, is to see some guidance from FS staff, as to what is preferred and in which order of importance, and what isn't desired. Without it, its just a free for all of contention.
Eric, also what is irriating is those coat of arms are posted without any content to tell where it's from and what scholarly work was done to prove them.
Elizabetta, it's easy to remove that which is obviously placed in error. We can help!
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