Using facial recognition software to identify Civil War Soldiers

[Christine]

This is so amazing!! Any of you have any Civil War ancestors? This website takes uploaded photos and matches them to unidentified ones in the millions of Civil War images floating around!

https://slate.com/technology/2018/11/civ...ition.html

https://www.civilwarphotosleuth.com/

https://militaryimages.atavist.com/photo...ummer-2015

[RJNorton]

Christine, I know of the enormous amount of research you have done on Frederick A. Aiken. Do you know if the photo of him on Find-A-Grave is authentic?

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/39589509

[Steve]

I wonder how this facial recognition software will have affected Civil War scholarship and genealogical research, looking back a decade or more in the future.

[Gene C]

This reminds me of a song

Photographs and Memories by Jim Croce
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48o5rCFFxh8

[Christine]

(11-20-2018 06:30 AM)RJNorton Wrote:  Christine, I know of the enormous amount of research you have done on Frederick A. Aiken. Do you know if the photo of him on Find-A-Grave is authentic?

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/39589509

I have no idea! I have never seen that. I wonder where he found that picture.

[Steve]

(11-20-2018 10:39 PM)Christine Wrote:  

(11-20-2018 06:30 AM)RJNorton Wrote:  Christine, I know of the enormous amount of research you have done on Frederick A. Aiken. Do you know if the photo of him on Find-A-Grave is authentic?

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/39589509

I have no idea! I have never seen that. I wonder where he found that picture.

This is the image used on Aiken's Find A Grave page:



The earliest instance of the photograph I could find online was on a website called Spared & Shared 2, that provides images and transcripts of old letters for historians and genealogists:

https://sparedandshared2.wordpress.com/

The photo of the man identified as Aiken comes from this page transcribing a 08 June 1840 letter from Caleb Frederick Cope to Pennsylvania State Senator Samuel M. Barclay:

https://sparedandshared2.wordpress.com/l...m-barclay/

The photo is unidentified but is used as an example of what Cope "might have looked like". I'm not sure why the author did that. The photograph was published on the site in August 2012.

There's a painting of Cope on his own Find A Grave page:

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/1458...erick-cope

From the Find A Grave images file size and upload date it seems that it was copied from this online encyclopedia called Alchetron, founded in 2014:

https://alchetron.com/Frederick-Aiken#-

I don't know if Alchetron and Spared & Shared copied the image from a website that no longer exists or if Alchetron just copied from S & S and made up that it was Aiken.

Here's a copy of Caleb Cope's obituary from page 4 of the 13 May 1888 edition of the Philadelphia Times. This is followed by an engraving of Cope.

[Gene C]

That's impressive research Steve.

[L Verge]

Back when we were blessed with Christine's great bio on Frederick Aiken that led to the Surratt Society erecting a monument on his grave in Oak Hill Cemetery in DC's Georgetown, I remember finding this same photo. I don't remember how we decided that it was not Frederick, however.

There was also a sketch (maybe one of Lew Wallace's?) that seemed to be labeled "Aiken," but the writing was questionable. That's the closest we ever came to trying to find a photo. At the dedication of the tombstone, relatives of Aiken from another line came up from Florida. They said they had never seen any family photos of him either. It seems strange since Aiken went on to be the city editor for the Washington Times-Herald (? or Post?) and had an obituary in the paper - but no photo.

[Steve]

I just came across this 1864 letter by Aiken to John C. Fremont encouraging him to challenge Lincoln for the Presidency:

https://www.sethkaller.com/item/49-20715...ln&from=12

[L Verge]

(11-21-2018 05:26 PM)Steve Wrote:  I just came across this 1864 letter by Aiken to John C. Fremont encouraging him to challenge Lincoln for the Presidency:

https://www.sethkaller.com/item/49-20715...ln&from=12

I think Christine included this in her great work, Finding Frederick, which ran in the Surratt Courier. It may be on our website under History.

[Eva Elisabeth]

(11-21-2018 07:23 AM)Gene C Wrote:  That's impressive research Steve.

I second Gene!