What does this mean?

I decided to run the MyHeritage software through a few more tests using a family photo of the Deutsch family. My great-grandparents and their seven children. (taken at some point in the 1920s.) The photo is perfect since most of them are directly facing the camera, which helps the face recognition software.



I'm unable to distinguish at the moment between two of the brothers since they're close enough in age and I don't have other photos to compare with. However, the oldest daughter is Jean, the youngest daughter is Berta, the oldest son is Ted, the youngest son is Allen, and I recognize my grandfather. That's five more tests I can run.

(Was the youngest son, "Allen", who was born in the US, named after "Armin", a child who died tragically in Romania, and I blogged about in October? First and last initials. I don't know for sure, but my suspicion is yes.)

Ted Ed looks 15% more like his mother. [This is what happens when one judges age by appearances. You'll note it was the fifth one I did -- I decided at the last moment that he was definitely older than the other two. I've been told I was wrong. I can't change it on the graphic below, but this note should suffice. I should have gotten identification from this source for this photo when I scanned it, but I'm glad she's reading my blog.]



And for the sons, it keeps getting worse for Samuel...

Martin looks 35% more like his mother


And if you think 35% is slightly worrisome, look at Allen's results:



I happen to agree with the results. I could almost get Allen and Helen confused. Luckily for Samuel, his daughters are a little more balanced.

Berta



Jean



My great-grandmother's genes appear to have had a tendency towards dominance.

Face Recognition

Jasia at CreativeGene has been experimenting with MyHeritage Face Recognition. So I thought I would try it out too.

I decided to see which grandparents I looked most alike, and I started by clipping the faces from the Bar Mitzvah photograph I posted yesterday, as well as from another photo of my maternal grandmother from the 1940s.

I started out with my paternal grandparents - Melvin Newmark and Sissie Feinstein (Sissie being a name her older brother gave her, and it ended up sticking the rest of her life) and discovered I looked slightly more like my grandmother than my grandfather.

MyHeritage: Family trees - Genealogy - Celebrities - Collage - Morph

Then I tried my maternal grandparents, Martin Deutsch and Myrtle Van Every. I had to find a different photo for Myrtle, and discovered I was 13% more like my grandfather.

MyHeritage: Family tree - Genealogy - Celebrity - Collage - Morph

I wondered though if this was being influenced by the photographs having been taken when they were of significantly different ages. So I found a younger photo of both.

MyHeritage: Look-alike Meter - Family tree layout - Family search

Exactly equal!

So...am I more like my mom's parents, or my dad's parents? Well, the above doesn't tell me. So I had to do two more.

I'm 14% more like my maternal grandfather

MyHeritage: Look-alike Meter - Family search - Roots

And then to compare my grandmothers, I had to find a younger photo of Sissie. The one I chose is a little grainy because it came from a newspaper clipping - her engagement announcement.

MyHeritage: Family trees - Genealogy - Celebrities - Collage - Morph

This was certainly a lot of fun!