Hannah Hill Romney Album: The Album Itself

Hannah Hood Hill Romney Album, Back Cover

Hannah Hood Hill Romney Album, Front Cover

Hannah Hood Hill Romney Album, Inside

Hannah Hill Romney Album: Oh Baby

Here are three unidentified babies from Hannah Hill Romney's photo album. As always, please contact me at the email address listed on the sidebar or leave a comment if you know who is shown in any of these pictures.

Note: if you want to reproduce these pictures elsewhere (Ancestry, etc.) please remember that it is a very generous gesture on the part of the owner of the album to provide these pictures to the descendants and relatives of the Miles Park and Hannah Hood Hill Romney family. If you copy pictures, remember to note that the pictures came from this site so that other people know where they're from and can see the entire collection and help make the identifications.

Here are some good articles and a collection of links about how to cite sources. (PDF Guide: "Genealogy Source Citations") (Genealogy.com: "How to Cite Sources.") (Cyndi's List: "Citing Sources")

And now back to the album and the three babies. The first and third pictures list only the name of C. R. (Charles Roscoe) Savage on the back, so presumably these two pictures were taken after Charles Savage and George M. Ottinger dissolved their partnership around 1872. (See Pioneer Photographers of the Far West, 478.)

 

Hannah Hill Romney Album: Sisters

Archibald and Isabella Hood Hill had two daughters, Hannah and Rebecca. Here are pictures of the two of them. The first was sent by Pettit cousin Cheryl and shows Rebecca Hill Pettit with her husband Edwin Pettit.

This picture of Hannah with five children was sent by Sharon Wilbur and Christy Madsen to help with the identification of the pictures in this project.

Here is a picture from the Hannah Hill Romney Album. 

When I first saw this picture, I thought it was Hannah, but I looked at it again and think it is probably Rebecca. Here are some close-ups.

Rebecca Hill Pettit.

Picture from album.

Hannah Hill Romney.

Hannah Hill Romney. From Orson Pratt Brown website.

What do you think? I just looked at a web page on facial recognition technology. Facial recognition software evidently creates a "faceprint" using several criteria:

• Distance between the eyes
• Width of the nose
• Depth of the eye sockets
• The shape of the cheekbones
• The length of the jaw line ("How Facial Recognition Systems Work," howstuffworks.com)

Based on those guidelines, the first two pictures look like the best match, and I conclude this is Rebecca Hood Hill Pettit.

And to add to the data, the following picture was identified as Rebecca Hill Pettit. Could it be Hannah? It looks like her, but the girl does not look like the picture of Hannah's daughter Isabell at that age. It does look like Rebecca's daughter, Mary, so I conclude that this is also Rebecca Hill Pettit, as previously identified.

As always, please contact me if you have questions or comments or positive identifications or other pictures of these people. Leave a comment or send an email to the address listed in the sidebar.

Hannah Hill Romney Album: Men in Pompadours

Here are the next two pictures. With the Prince Albert coat, the fact that the picture was taken in London, the book in his hands (scriptures?), and the fact that the picture was found in Hannah Hill Romney's album this is probably a missionary. Which missionary would it be? It is someone close enough to make it into the family album.

 

The only reference I can find to G. Flower is a note about an ambrotype for sale. Westminster Bridge Road is just south/east of the Thames, and was the location of Astley's Theatre, as noted on the photograph.

This man is not Archibald Hill and it's not Samuel Hill. Is it Miles Park Romney? I've never seen a picture of him at any other age besides this:

It doesn't look like it. Miles Park was in England when he was 18-21 years old, and this man looks substantially older. Could it be his father, Miles Romney? I seem to remember that he served as a missionary; I don't know whether it was before he emigrated or afterwards.

Miles Romney, the father of Miles Park Romney.

Could the picture from the album be a Hill uncle? There are several possibilities there, but I don't know if any of them served a mission in England. I'll try and follow up on this detail another time.

And, another picture from the album, a young man perhaps also wearing his hair in a pompadour (see this link for a discussion of 1900s pompadours, which is the wrong time frame, but the same or a similar hairstyle):

The back side of this picture does not have a photographer's mark. Could this be Miles Park Romney? The picture looks like it was taken in the 1860-1870 time period, which would make this young man be the right age to be Miles Park. Perhaps someone in the extended Romney family has a known photograph of Miles Park at this age to compare.

Amazing New Find: The Hannah Hill Romney Photo Album

Several days ago, a distant cousin emailed with the news of an amazing find. Hannah Hood Hill Romney's photo album had been kept by her daughter-in-law, Ethel Call Romney, and she left this note with the album, which was found recently by one of her descendants.

In 1969 when Ethel Romney wrote this note, it would have been difficult to identify the photographs, but due to technological advances, we may be able to tell the identities of some or all of the people in the pictures.

A Few Notes About Hannah Hood Hill Romney and Her Family

Hannah Hood Hill (1842-1929) was the daughter of Archibald Newell Hill (1816-1900) and Isabella Hood Hill (1821-1847). Archibald and Isabella were Scottish immigrants to Canada. Two children were born, Hannah and her brother Samuel Hood Hill (1840-1903), before the family joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and moved to Nauvoo where Rebecca Hood Hill [Pettit] (1845-1922) was born. Hannah's mother Isabell died at Winter Quarters as the Saints were headed west.

In 1862, Hannah married Miles Park Romney (1843-1904) in Salt Lake City, Utah. Miles left almost immediately after their marriage for a three-year mission to England. After he returned, the Romney family moved several times, first to help build the town of St. George in southern Utah, then to help establish St. Johns in eastern Arizona, then to help found the Mormon Colonies in Mexico.

Hannah had eleven children. She told about her life in a touching and detailed autobiography which unfortunately is not available online.

After Miles Park Romney died in 1904, Hannah and his other wives, Catharine Cottam Romney (1855-1918) and Annie Woodbury Romney (1858-1930), sold the family ranch in Mexico. Hannah spent much of the rest of her life living with her children and her sister, Rebecca Hill Pettit.

Hannah was visiting family in the Colonies in Mexico when she died in 1929.

Some Pictures from the Photo Album

Please leave comments or send an email (see my email address on the sidebar) if you know the subject of any of the pictures posted today or subsequently or if you can tell us anything about  the details of the pictures or photographers.

Here is the first picture.

This picture was taken by Charles Outon in Landport, which is in England. The identification on the back of the picture says, "A. N. Hill & Son." It is written in Spencerian script, which means that the person who identified the picture was probably educated in the Nineteenth Century, so it may be an accurate identification. Here are known pictures of Archibald and Samuel to compare, and the identification looks correct.

Archibald Hill as a missionary. This picture is courtesy of Sharon Wilbur, and is not from the Hannah Hill Romney Album.

Back (left to right): Archibald Hill, Samuel Hill. Front: Hannah Hill Romney, Rebecca Hill Pettit. This picture is courtesy of Sharon Wilbur, and is not from the Hannah Hill Romney Album.

When was Archibald Hill in England? An anonymously-written family history notes:

Archibald served a mission in 1865 (2 years and 4 months) to Birmingham and Southampton and traveled 3,657 miles by foot; 7,631 miles by railroad; 8,786 miles by water; attended 318 public meetings; preached 253 sermons; and baptized 10 persons. He visited his place of birth and met with an uncle. On his way home was appointed charge over a steamship of Saints going to America. [Here is the record of the journey of the Manhattan, with Archibald Hill presiding over the Saints.]

Samuel Hood Hill was in England about the same time and he headed another company of Saints traveling to America on the ship Caroline a year before his father returned home. [Account of the journey.] The picture of Archibald and Samuel Hill may have been taken before Samuel left England on May 5, 1866.

Here is another picture from Hannah Romney's photo album.

The photographers, Charles R. Savage and George M. Ottinger, operated in Salt Lake City from December 1863 to 1872.

I think this is a picture of Miles Park and Hannah Romney's oldest daughter, Isabell Hill Romney Platt; first, because it looks like her, and second, because she is shown alone without any siblings.

Isabell's father left on a mission to England before she was born in 1863 and returned when she was three years old. Perhaps Hannah had this picture taken to send to Miles in England, since Isabell appears to be one or two years old.

Here is a later picture of Isabell to compare to the subject of this photograph, as well as a picture of Miles Park Romney since Isabell has a very strong resemblance to her father.

From Findagrave. This is a copy of a picture from Life Story of Miles Park Romney (Thomas C. Romney, Independence, Missouri, 1948), f310.

A close-up of the child in the picture in the Hannah Hill Romney photo album.

Miles Park Romney. From Findagrave. This may be a copy of a picture from Life Story of Miles Park Romney (Thomas C. Romney, Independence, Missouri, 1948), frontispiece.

The picture of Archibald and Samuel Hill and the picture of Isabell Romney Platt were the first photographs in the collection. We will be posting many more and hopefully with the help of online resources and descendants who see this blog, we will be able to identify many of the people in the photographs.