FamilySearch Investigates Facial Recognition

 Well, we are interested but don't have a lot more information other than our interest. Facial recognition is not a particularly new technology but tagging historical photos is more complicated than identifying possible relationships from. similar facial features. One genealogy program with facial recognition has a moderately low rate of accuracy. Yes, the concept is helpful but if you tell me I have a cousin that isn't much help, I have thousands, actually tens of thousands of cousins. Tagging photos is the first stage in identifying individuals in old photos. Unfortunately, I have thousands of old photos for which I have no identification. Here is an example. 

I know that this photo was likely taken by my Great-grandmother, Margaret Godfrey Jarvis Overson. I can tell approximately when the photo was taken but that is about all I can identify. Even if I knew that I was related to these people, it would not be much help. I am related to a large percentage of all the people that lived in Apache County, Arizona from pioneer times. There is also a possibility that this particular photo, which is a copy of an earlier photo, was taken by Margaret's father, Charles Godfrey DeFriez Jarvis because with the animal hide and the backdrop, this may be from a photo taken as early as the 1880s. It may also be possible that my great-grandmother was just copying the photo from someone else because she was a professional photographer and the photo was taken somewhere else and the people in the photo are not even remotely related to me. Hmm. Photo ID seems to be complicated.