Have You Used Facial Recognition Software?

A newsletter reader wrote this week with a fascinating question. I cannot help, but I am hoping that perhaps newsletter readers can do so. Have you ever used facial recognition software for genealogy purposes?

Here is an excerpt from the e-mail message I received:

My question is about old photos and efforts to identify persons. I have an old photo (about 1880) with five men, one of whom is identified as my great-grandfather’s brother. Their father had four sons. I have other photos of the other sons, taken at different times in their lives. I am unable to visually confirm whether those in the first photo are indeed those in the other, later photos.

My question is this: Is there facial recognition software available which could either confirm or rule out the identities of these persons?

Can anyone help? Have you tried this? If so, please respond in the comments section at the bottom of this article.

Thank you for any assistance you can offer.

Comments

[Sherrye]

You need more than facial software - you need to also "date" the photo. I had a similar case where I thought 2 photos were of my ancestor at different ages. I had Maureen Taylor "the photo detective" look at them and she dated the earlier looking man as a later photo, so even though the men looked identical it was impossible date wise. The later photo was probably a nephew of my ancestor who looked remarkably like his uncle. So I don't think facial software can tell you positively whether it is the same man because a close relative can also have the same features.

[Thomas Clough]

MyHeritage (http://www.myheritage.com/) appears to be doing some experimentation with facial recognition software. So far., it doesn't look like it is a practical research tool. Maybe that will change as better algorithms make it into software accessible to the general user.

[Israel Pickholtz]

There was a speaker from MyHeritage.com at the IAJGS Conference in 2006 and I tried to follow up with him afterwards, hoping to get some clues to advance my single-surname research - ie getting some facial clues to determine which families are more closely related.

The correspondence was one-sided, so I haven't a clue if they really have anything to offer. (One would think that since both the speaker and I are in Israel, that would be a simple follow-up, but one would be wrong.)

[Bobbi]

Online they offered to tell which celebrities you looked like using facial recognition software. Neither I, nor my family agreed with what they said.

[Mary W. B.]

I can't believe there aren't more comments in this topic. First of all its fairly easy to "date" a photo if you are familiar with old photos and clothing,hair,hat styles etc., so I am sure if you say your photo was taken around 1880 that you know what you are talking about. I have the same type of situation with an 1880 photo and the same? person 50 years later. I believe the software the lay person would use is probably not that reliable and the good stuff is what forensics police labs and forensic anthropologists use. It would be interesting to have an expert along those lines to be at some genealogy conferences to look at photos and give their opinion and perhaps bring some scanning programs with them. Everything I have read on the subject points to trying to match the ears, supposedly they don't change much and most everything else does. But of course you would have to be able to see the ears, well, if both photos! Dick, something you might want to bring up for one of those conferences, I know there are those of us who would gladly pay for a professional opinion to back up our own since the cost of the equipment must be prohibitive. Perhaps a good online money-maker for someone willing to invest in some equipment and time!!