Stephanie's Genealogy: Colorized Family Photos

When MyHeritage.com recently came out with their photo "colorizing" tool, I was curious to see how well it really worked, and then I had fun colorizing lots of my old family photos:

Many, like this one of my great grandmother, Avagail Taylor Moore, came out quit well. I was impressed by a computer program's ability not only to recognize different textures like trees, dirt & rocks, sky, clothing, hair, and skin color and apply the correct (or probable) colors; but also by it's ability to apply the correct color to items that you might think would be less recognizable to a computer program, such as a yellow tint for a straw hat, (even though the hat was laying on the ground, so the program didn't only have to recognize that it was a hat because it was on someone's head, but just because of the shape and texture of it, I suppose).

Avagail Taylor Moore

Agnes Laura Schaefer Kraatz, 1909 or 1910

Carl John Spohr Sr. & Nettie Dorothy Graham Spohr, 1929

On others, their program struggled a bit with the colors, often showing a woman's dress with a mixture of blue/red/purple in the areas where the light hit the fabric differently, even though when a person looks at these colorized photos, it's easy to tell that the dress should have been one solid color. For example, in this photo of my great, great grandmother, Lillie Margaret Conners Dick with her baby daughter, Virginia, who passed away not long after this photo was taken, her dress looks like it has a pink/purple tint around the neck, like the rest of the dress is blue, and like the lighter area of the dress across her lap is mostly grey.

I've always loved this photo -- it is so sweet, and it is one of only two existing photographs that we have of baby Virginia -- so I took the time to do a little work on photoshop to see if I could get it looking a little more like it may have looked. (Although, inconsequentially, for some reason I always pictured Lillie in a red polka dot dress when I had see this black and white photo growing up. Who knows how accurate the color blue is for the dress, but you have to admit there is something about adding a little color that brings these pictures to life).

Virginia Ann Dick and Lillie Margaret Conners Dick

This is another where the color came out quite well on many parts of the photo, but the pink and blue effect on the grandmother's dress is quite distracting:

So I touched this one up in photoshop too. The result isn't perfect, but I believe the color of her dress is far less distracting now, and I was also able to touch up a few other spots where the color didn't seem quite right (one side of the skirt of the tallest little girl, the area around the grandmother's hand, and the area around the hand of the little boy who is standing up).

Jay Smith, Mary Moss, Madge Smith, Cleone Snow (front), Cella Smith, William Smith Chidester, William Smith & Deama Smith

And sometimes the program just struggled to add the correct colors in all the right places, such as this wedding photo of my great great grandparents, where the colorization all looks great, except the best man's sleeve, and the shadows around the bride's face are both red:

But those were really simple fixes in photoshop:

Amalia Spohr & William Schaefer, Anna Ott & Ludwig Spohr wedding 1898 Cincinnati, Ohio

But the vast majority of the photos that I tested out with their colorization tool came out looking great. I'd have to say this one may be one of my favorites. Mostly because the digital copy that I have is not a high quality image, so I wondered if the poor quality of the image might make the colorization turn out poor too. But I was pleasantly surprised with the results:

I enjoyed the colorized version of this little photo so much, that I just had to take a few minutes to do some minor cleanup of some of the scratches and specks from the original black and white image. The boy standing on the left with the blue jacket is my great, great grandfather, Ephraim Austin Taylor.

Ephraim Austin, Ada Matilda, Margaret Ellen, William Gross, Minnie Esther, Della Vilate Taylor

And this one was a fun little discovery: I had seen this photo of my grandpa, John Leo Chidester and his twin sister Jean plenty of times before. I always found it an intriguing photo, because in addition to the twins, it also showed a little about the family home. From what I know, they lived in a small rural town and the family wasn't very well off, and I like that this picture shows us a little of what their house and yard looked like. And you can see the twins' older sister, Bernice, sitting over on the right with her back to the camera.

But I had never before noticed their older brother, Ross, peaking out from behind the porch where John was sitting before the photo was colorized. I don't know whether Ross was positioned there to help the babies sit up or to make sure the twins didn't tumble off backwards during the photo, or if he was possibly just playing there (my kids would probably get a kick out of this early example of what they would probably call 'photo bombing'). But I just thought it was cool how adding color could reveal details that may otherwise go unnoticed.

Jean and John Chidester (and Ross in background, and Bernice on right)

Anyway, although we can't always know if the colors are accurate, especially when it comes to colors of clothing or sometimes hair (I colorized a cute little photo of my dad when he was a kid, but instead of his red hair it showed it as light brown), I do think colorizing these photos is a fun way to bring out certain details and "make them come alive." Of course, these colorized photos are just a fun novelty, and they can never replace the originals. But it is fun to see them in a different way like this.

Lillie Margaret Conners Dick

John George Graham

Mariah Lucinda, Harriet, Dorothy, Hulda Samantha, Mary Louisa, James Harvey Heath Sr., James Harvey Jr., Trissie Jane, & Hulda Maria Holden Heath

Sarah Rees Taylor and sons

John Leo Chidester

Olive Giffin and Lewis Tucker, Lincoln, Missouri

Amy Spohr, Frances Monk, and Paul Spohr

Anna Marie Ott Spohr

Amanda Melvina Smith, James Parker, John William Jr., Mary Mariah,

John William Chidester, Milton, Dewey, & Hulda Samantha Heath Chidester

Anna & Carl Spohr Jr., 1907 or 1908

Avagail Taylor Moore

Beverly and Carl Spohr (right) and college friends

Eliza Lucinda Smith Chidester

Anna Marie Ott Spohr (front center in white dress) & unknown people

Steven John Chidester

(this is the photo of my dad where the colorization didn't get the color right on his red hair)

Wilhelmina Minnie Schaefer Hilker & Mathilda Amalia Spohr Schaefer (standing),

Los Angeles Ostrich Farm, California

Pearl and Berniece Graham

Ivan J Moore with his truck

Courtland Oliver Dick

Nettie, Clifford, Florence, John George, Susie Florence, Susie Estell,

Kenneth, Cora, Berniece, Pearl, & John Henry Graham

Nonnie Schaefer, St Louis, Missouri

Ivan J Moore & Avagail Taylor Moore

Ross, Smith, James Rasmussen, James Parker, John, Jean,

Bernice, Lucinda, Ross Rasmussen, and Gwen Chidester

Anna Marie Ott Spohr & Maria Ann Strunz Ott

Beverly Frances Monk Spohr

Eliza Lucinda Smith and James Parker Chidester

Faun Moore Chidester

Florentina Constantina Fritz Dobbins

Four Generations: Beverly Monk Spohr, Amy Spohr,

Frances Dick Monk, and Lillie Conners Dick

Frances and Virginia Dick

Steven Chidester (front row, far right) third grade class

Thomas Parley Rees & Sarah Jane John Rees and baby

Beverly and Carl Spohr's wedding day

Beverly Monk riding pony

Marion Smith (friend), Carl John Spohr,

Cora Augusta Graham Davis, and Nettie Dorothy Graham Spohr

Courtland Oliver Dick

Eliza Lucinda Smith Chidester with her twins, Mary Jean and John Leo Chidester

Ephraim Austin Taylor

Ethel, Edith, Levi Ray, Jessie, Ruby, Leonard,

Estella, Amy, Lucinda Elvira Hyatt Paramore Hunt, Leland, and Levi Alderman Hunt

Faun & Gwen Moore

Frances Monk with Amy, Paul, and Beverly Spohr

Faun Moore and John Chidester, wedding

Frances Olive Dick Monk

Henrietta Graham Dunn, Eugene or William Graham, John George Graham, Pearl Dowling, Gus Graham, Ruth Dowling,

Barb Clarkson, _, Frances Clarkson,

Elva and Edwin Fleming

Ivan and Guy Moore

Faun Moore

Hulda Samantha Heath and John William Chidester (couple on left)

Ivan J Moore & Edith Hunt Moore

John Leo Chidester

Lillie Margaret Conners

Louis Christopher and Carl John Spohr, about 1909

Louis Spohr, Carl Spohr, and Jimmy Lively

Lucinda and James Chidester

Ludwig "Louis" Spohr

Robert & Frances, Herbert & Mary, Jim & Millie,

Mildred Monk Jefferis, Beverly, Mary Maude and William, Bob Monk, & Robert Jefferis

Beverly Frances Monk & Frances Olive Dick Monk

Carl John Spohr Jr.

Cora Augusta Graham & John Henry Graham, 1920

Courtland Oliver Dick -- 4116 Wayne, Kansas City, Missouri

Ruby Hunt (left), high school graduation

Carl John Spohr Jr.

Courtland Oliver Dick (left)

Frances Olive Dick (right) and friends

Ivan J Moore

John and Susie Graham, 50th Anniversary

Louis Christopher Ott, Franz Joseph 'Frank' Ott, & Maria Anna Strunz Ott, Cincinnati Ohio

Louis Spohr and Florence Graham Spohr

Ludwig Spohr confectionery, 1910

Nettie & Carl Graham

Robert Wilson Monk & Frances Olive Dick Monk

Sarah James Flake & Joseph Hyrum Levi family

Ivan J Moore

Mary Jean and John Leo Chidester

Ludwig Spohr at his Confectionery, between 1904 & 1912

Nettie Dorothy Graham Spohr

Twins, Jean & John Chidester

And these are the four family photographs that we have which were taken in Böhmen. We haven't identified these individuals yet, although each one was taken in or near some of our Bohemian ancestral hometowns there: