Featured Deciphering Help: Tintype 2

This is what happens when you go shopping and don't take the right eyeglasses with you.

Even though I borrowed a magnifying glass from the shopkeeper, the writing was so faded I couldn't make it out. But I was pretty sure there was a town name and a state name. I was wrong.

So any thoughts on place origin for this tintype of James M. Henry? I've included his photo so you're even more inspired to reunite this handsome gent with his family of origin.

 

Either Larkhurst or Parkhurst and I think the PO? and PQ? are telling us he was in Canada.

 

Okay, I don't know how those things (PO and PQ) tell us he was in Canada. Please educate this ignorant soul, eh?

 

Province Ontario and Province Quebec.

 

Oh, see there. I was thinking "post office" and "what the heck, James, "PQ" doesn't mean anything!"

Adding another country to the mix does not increase the likelihood of a family reunion, lol. Not with such a generic name. I always swear I won't buy tintypes and then some handsome guy/gal, draws me in.

 

Bakersgma beat me to the punch. I do think it is PQ though.

 

Unfortunately Googling Parkhurst Canada gives me only commercial info for a bunch of companies that use that name and Googling Larkhurst Canada just asks me if I really want to search for Parkhurst.

 

That beard gives him a Scottish look.

 

I did the same "parkhurst canada" search -- with the same results.

I'm guessing, if the 1888 date is when the photo was taken, he was born some time between 1815 and 1825... there is a Scottish born James M Henry that fits... but he's not the only one that fits. Will take some more work to see if I can get there.

Really sad not to have a US state.

 

(just wondering what's up with his "sleeve" cuffs... what does he have on under that coat?)

 

We assumed the PC address indicated Parkhurst Post Office, Province of Quebec.
Parkhurst is northeast of Quebec City along the St Lawrence.

 

a sweater
it's cold in canada.....
just look at those rosy cheeks !!

 

oh, awesome -- thank you!

I've sent a query to one ancestry.com member that has a "private" (I can't see it) tree with a James M Henry photo. If he's hers, that will sooooo simplify this process.

 

@Jivvy , how successful have you been with reuniting photos with relatives of people in the photos? I've done a little of that, but have not followed through far enough on some of it. Maybe not persistent enough? But then I end up with photos that don't really fit my collection. I've been successful in finding quite a few of the photo subjects in Find A Grave. It takes some research but if I'm sure it is the same person I will upload a scan to the memorial there.

I'd like to get better at finding relatives and sending photos to them. Have done that only a handful of times.

What are some of your methods?

 

I post two places (usually) Deadfred.com and Ancestry.com.

DeadFred.com is where I've gotten the most inquiries from people who want the physical photos. The site is a great resource, but it's a bit of late 1990s coding and not as user-friendly as it could be. To be honest, though... I haven't had an inquiry from them in awhile.

On ancestry.com, I use the information I have from the pics to build a family tree and attach the pics to the (I hope) right people. If you have an account at ancestry.com, it costs nothing to make new trees -- most people there are happy with the high res version of photos and don't care about the physical photos. I name the new trees something like FoundPhoto-SurnameSurname (depending on the number of photos and branches of family covered).

And make it clear in my profile that people can contact me about any photos in the "foundPhoto" trees.

I used to contact people on ancestry to see if they wanted the photos (I charge nothing) and 2-3 years ago they did -- but I recently decided to stop that. Occasionally, people want them, but I've had enough "no" responses that now I just post them in public trees and if someone contacts me about the originals, awesome. If not, I can see how many people save the digital files to their trees and that makes me happy.

 

Sounds good -- thanks!

Right now I can't really do the Ancestry thing. Or I could sort of do it. I do use Ancestry but it's not my account. One of my sisters kindly lets me use her account. So I can't communicate with people there because it's attached to one of her email addresses. She rarely uses Ancestry, and I gather that the email account is one that she rarely uses. I mostly use Ancestry for searching.

So anyway, I do belong to a few Facebook groups that are for the purpose of reuniting photos and other items with family members. I don't use them enough, but have been able to reunite one photo through there. Hadn't thought of using Dead Fred, although have seen the site before.

I can see what you mean about approaching people directly about photos of their relatives. I've had mixed results with that myself.

And I will keep uploading photo scans to Find A Grave. I've always hoped that relatives would find them. Not sure whether there is a way to tell whether any of them have been downloaded, or even viewed!

 

There was a time in school that we had to make our capital "Q" look like a big scrolly '2'........

 

@Aquitaine
Can you enhance the writing at all?

I'm not sure the last name is Henry. I see Heney And there may be a second "n" there for Henney

 

James M. Henry
Lakehurst
May 27th 1888

I cannot read the rest and I have not read the comments, but here's my WAG!

 

....parkhurst......