Find my relative
I have a professionally taken photo of a woman that was taken in Portsmouth, Ohio. This photo belonged to my Grandmother, Katherine Ross Clare -Wilson who was born in Portsmouth and her parents were E.H. Clare and Jennie Elizabeth Losee-Clare. On the back of the photo my grandmother wrote: My niece Miss Jennings. The photographer was Gillet, initials WG in Portsmouth, Ohio. My Grandmother's maiden name is Clare and her mother's maiden name is Losee.
I cannot find Miss Jennings so I can add her to my tree and I would appreciate anyone's help with finding her.
Answers
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@NancyNagy I have had wonderful luck in the past locating people in pictures on family search, but I haven’t been able to identify Miss Jennings, and I’m sorry about that. I was very hopeful. Katherine Ross Clare Wilson’s PID is 9V86-Z34. Maybe someone else could take a look and see if they can find her?
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@NancyNagy I had some fun with A.I., specifically Copilot, (but you can use any of them), who was able to find several families in the Portsmouth, Ohio area, around the time the photographer was active. None of these may actually be involved, or all who knows, but you may want to try a similar experiment and see the many family names Jennings who lived in Portsmouth while this photographer was active.
Daughters of William & Mary Jennings (1880 household)
- Daughters of John H. & Sarah Jennings (1880 household)
- Adult daughters of widow Martha A. Jennings (1900 household)
- Anna Jennings (single, 1910) — if the photo is late‑era cabinet card
These households all had unmarried daughters of portrait age living in Portsmouth during the exact years WG Gillet was active.
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I believe the ID reference for Katherine Ross Clare should be LVF4-NYN. Quickly found her in the tree, as the ID shown is for her sister, Jennie Elizabeth Clare. I can often trace individuals through their relationships - not through photos, though - but mainly work on England records, where such tasks are generally more straightforward!
The problem here lies in how "loose" the term "niece" is in this instance - and that being no first name for "Miss Jennings", of course. I tried a check using FIND, but could not find a Jennings / Lossee or Jennings / Clare spousal relationship in Ohio, but there are a few Jennings / Wilson options.
About to go out for the day, so no time to go further, but these are the lines I would generally work on in establishing, say, a Jennings / Wilson relationship that might identify the lady in the photo.
See Family Tree Search Results - jennings - although this assumes the scenario of a "Mr Jennings" marrying a relative of Katherine's (Wilson) husband! Probably a fruitless line of investigation in this case, but just an idea of one of the methods I would use without relying on someone being able to identify the person concerned from a photograph.
BTW - I'm no expert in dating photographs, but see Katherine was not born until 1898, whereas the photo of her "niece" appears (to me) to date before that. Perhaps another Community member has ideas / suggestions on both this and the main issue raised by the OP.
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