For weeks the media have been focused on which breed of dog our new First Family would pick for their family pet. Turns out only two presidents have never had pets in the White House. 

You can read all about famous presidential pets in this article on the Mental Floss blog, from Calvin Coolidge's pygmy hippo (no joke!) to Franklin Roosevelt's adorable terrier named Fala.

I'm bringing this series of pet photos to an end with these final three pictures. The two previous installments can be viewed on this blog: An Album of Ancestor's Pets and Pet Photos: Our Ancestor's Loved Their Dogs Too.

Carol Norwood sent in one of her favorite family pictures. It was taken in Gottingen, Germany in 1892 and shows the Agricola family. Agnes Agricola and Hermann Simon (Carol's great-grandparents) are seated in the center of the front row.



Claudia submitted a picture of her mother tending geese. She told me that her mother always said they would chase and bite her. She estimates this picture was taken circa 1933-1935.



One other reader sent an image for posting here. It depicts her grandfather's older sister Margaretha Petersen, known to the family as Maggie, with their pet dog. The dog's name wasn't recorded. Maggie was born in 1888.  According to the submission, Maggie was the family "pet" herself, the only daughter until her sister was born in 1899.

The red discoloration is due to dye transferring from a paper sleeve to the image.



Anyone have a clue about the breed of this last dog?

Thank you for sharing all these pictures.

Raise your hand if you've discovered a cache of family photos you didn't know about after the death of a relative.

I'm sure if I asked an audience of hundreds, few hands would remain down.  You'd think there wouldn't be any surprise photos in my family, but no ... Even my Dad squirreled away a few I didn't know about. I think he forgot he had them. Now I'm trying to figure out the significance of those long-lost pictures.

Bobbi Borbas is in a similar situation. She found these three images in a box of photos that once belonged to her mother.

In the first (below), a family sits for a group portrait. Look closely—only the father gazes at the lens, the rest of the family's eyes aren't on the camera, but on the person who stands to our left, near the photographer. It makes you wonder what's happening on the other side of the camera. Was the assistant trying to distract the children or making last-minute suggestions?



The clothing (note the mother's full upper sleeves) and the decorative embossing on the mat date the picture between the late 1890s to about 1905. That gives Bobbi a starting point.

When she wrote, she thought the picture might depict her great-grandfather.I called her today and asked her to send me a family chart. She's looking for a family that fits the following details around the turn of the century:

• Six children (three girls and two boys, plus a baby less than a year old)
• The oldest boy and girl (behind their parents) close to their early teen years.
• A boy (standing between his parents) around school age. 

Borbas' second image (below) is a tintype of a young girl. This is a gorgeous image without any of the darkening varnish so often seen in early tintypes.



The photographer added gold leaf to the girl's jewelry to make it stand out. She's probably an older toddler, not yet school age, and sits with a hand in a pocket of her cotton dress.

The dress style dates the image to the early 1860s; Wide necklines like this for young girls are seen in photos of the 1850s and 1860s. The identification clue is clearly her ears—Bobbi needs to watch for similarly shaped ears in other family pictures.

The third image is very interesting. It's set in a tiny piece of photo jewelry, only 3/8 inch wide by 1/2 inch high. The photo itself is only a quarter inch. You'll have to wait until next week to see it—I'm still working on a couple of the details. With any luck, I'll be able to report success in identifying the individuals in these two images. Stay posted!

Debbie Deaton sent me a photo hoping I could confirm the identity of this family. She thinks this portrait depicts the Deaton family: Franklin Deaton, his wife, Mahalia Mae Archer Deaton, and their children. Standing next to Mahalia is her son and Franklin’s step-son, Harley. The other boy is Arthur Lee Deaton, Debbie’s husband’s grandfather. The girl is supposedly Zelda.

The clothing in this picture is the first thing I looked at, but it doesn’t tell the whole story. The full sleeves on the women’s dresses suggest a time frame of the mid 1890s. That’s the easy part. I know I’ve said it before, but costume is only one clue. In this picture’s case, the family history and genealogy can solve the mystery. 

Debbie knows little about the individuals in this picture. They lived in Oklahoma, and Mahalia was supposedly a full-blood Cherokee Indian. Franklin worked as a Sheriff. He died delivering a tax bill; as he got to the door, the man shot Franklin dead.

I searched GenealogyBank for newspaper stories relating to Franklin, but didn’t have any luck. Then I tried the Oklahoma Historical Society Web site, where you can search citations for Oklahoma newspaper articles. Unfortunately, Franklin didn’t appear in the index.

I decided to search the Federal Census using HeritageQuest Online (I have access with my Boston Public Library card—see if your public library system provides access to HeritageQuest). I didn’t find Franklin, but there was a 1900 census record for Mahalia (below). 

She’s living with an Archer family. Her relationship to the head of the household is "step daughter;" Mahalia's children are "step grandchildren."  Both Arthur and Zildy (Zelda) appear, but no Harley. The census states Mahala’s race as "Ind." and she reported having given birth to three children. 

That led me to some possibilities:

• If this picture shows Arthur (b. August 1894) and Zildy (b. January 1900), it certainly wasn’t taken in the mid- 1890s.  The children are too old and their ages reversed. The girl in this photo is older thn both boys. I’d estimate she's around 10 years old. The boy on the right is 7 or 8 and the other is even younger.

• Where’s Harley in the census? He may have died. This is a key piece of information that requires additional research. Perhaps the photo shows Mahala and two boys from a third marriage, though I think this is the least likely scenario.

• Instead of depicting Mahala and her husband, could this image feature the Archer family from the census: Earl, his wife, their daughter and two youngest sons?   
  

There are a lot of unanswered questions about the Deaton family and this picture, but it’s a solvable problem. I’d continue to look for a death notice or news story about Franklin’s death, which appears to have occurred about 1900. I also suggest Debbie look at her family tree for other families with children the right ages for this image. Other research that can help includes the Dawes Rolls of Five Civilized Tribe enrollments.  

I have to admit all the questions around this picture make my head hurt. If you have a suggestion for these Oklahoma research woes, please post a comment.