Last week I was at a lecture at the Philadelphia Historical
Society about using various family documents
to try to put together a family tree.
One of the speakers was talking about how family pictures can be
misleading. She put one up on the screen
and was pointing out that the places in which people were standing made you
draw conclusions that were not necessarily correct. In fact, a couple of the
people in the picture were not even family members.
On my old computer downstairs, my desktop screen shows the following
picture.
.
As I was look at it today, I remembered the lecture and
thought that if someone in the future saw came across this picture, they might
draw a few wrong conclusions so I decided to play a bit of a game with myself to
see what I might think, if I knew nothing about this family. Here goes.
The picture is of a
birthday party. The boy in the great sweatshirt
who is blowing out the candles is probably turning about ten years old, though
it is hard to tell because of the flames.
Looking on are his two brothers.
They all have similar haircuts.
The youngest who looks to be about three has the same hair and skin
color as the birthday both and the same eye color has his oldest brother who is
about thirteen. Watching them is their
grandmother or possibly an older aunt – she looks young to have a thirteen year
old grandson, but a bit old to be the mother of the youngest boy. Both boys are wearing sweatshirts that, if
you put the names together spell Eagles, so they probably live in Philadelphia.
If it is football season, then this picture is probably taking place in
fall. This is backed up by the fact that
the grandmother is wearing a sweater in the house as is someone whose elbow we
can only see.
These are the most
obvious guesses, but one might guess
that the elbow belongs to the boys’ mother.
The picture on the wall behind them looks like a large family group, so
it is likely that their mother would be there for the party. (As opposed to the
boys living with their grandmother.)
The house is probably a good size house – or at least not a small one
because the stairs in the background show that there is a second floor. The table we are looking at is just a
portion of what appears to be a much larger table so this must be the dining room. The
display of plates behind them also has more the look of a dining room than a
kitchen. It is a dining room that is
actually used for eating, though, because there are salt and pepper shakers on
the table and those don’t go too well with cake. The birthday boy likes diet
coke, while the grandmother prefers crush which she drinks from a can rather
than using a glass like her grandson.
Since this is a family blog, anyone who is reading this,
will recognize that a couple of the conclusions drawn here are wrong, but I think
it is an interesting exercise in making
assumptions. No doubt some of you would
have come up with different inferences.
