RootsChat.Com

I hope this is the right place for this.

I'm in a group for postmortem photographs. Often a person will post a photo of an infant or toddler who appears to be deceased and everyone automatically assumes it is a girl because the child is wearing a dress. I finally got tired of this and asked someone what made them think the child was female and they had no answer. Anyway another poster commented that you can supposedly tell the child's gender by the part in their hair. I had never heard of this before so I tried some google searches. I haven't been able to come up with anything conclusive. There was one website that claimed boys hair was parted on the side, but there was no citation or sources. And  looking at my own little collection of Victorian & Edwardian photos of children whose gender is known to me, I wasn't able to prove this to be true. I do know that it was somewhat popular for girls to have a middle part as Queen Victoria did, but I'm not sure I would conclusively guess that every child with a middle part is female based on that alone. So I'm looking to you lovely people, what is your experience with this? Is there any truth to this? 

Thanks for weighing in,
-Brittaya

The last name is Kelly, and his wife is Ethel.. However the first name is confusing me. I know what I think I'm seeing but I want to see if others are getting the same thing.. Thanks!

Britt

Would anyone be able to tidy up my nana Peggy, pretty please? This photo was emailed to me from a cousin in Alberta, so I apologize greatly for the quality, and I don't expect any miracles, but if she could be cleaned up a wee bit I'd be very grateful. I love the work everyone does on here, you are all so kind!

Britt

Hi everyone,

I've been chasing my Blacks from Aberdeen for quite a while now with a lot of help from everyone on here. As it turns out part of my work was wrong, I had foolishly accepted something I learned on Ancestry without verifying a long while back and I recently bought the record from SP and found out that I had the wrong parents for someone. So I've had to redo part of my tree. Anyway, I'm back on track now and I'm stuck at John Black b around 1813-1816.

John Black b. abt1813-1816 died somewhere between 1851-1861 from what I can gather.
His wife was Isabella Brown b. 1817 d. 1894

John and Isabella had 4 boys

William Black b.1844 – d.1875
Alexander Black b.1845 – d. before 1851
James Black b.1847 –
Robert Black b.1849 –

John and Isabella married in 1839. I have their marriage banns from SP, but there is no mention of age or parents. I also have Isabella's birth and death records from SP, but can't find John's. His name is too common and though I'm trying to narrow down the results I seem to be coming up with all the wrong ones or with ones that I have no way of verifying.

I'm pretty sure he died between 1851 and 1861 because I have him in census records in Old Machar with his wife and children in 1851 as a merchant, then by the 1861 census Isabella is alone with son Robert and is listed as head of the household and a shopkeeper. So either he divorced and went somewhere else or he's dead. Isabella's death record however lists her as Isabella Black, and widow of John Black so I'm guessing the divorce thing is highly unlikely.

What I'm trying to get at is John's parents, since this is a direct line for me. I don't have any siblings for John either or I'd look for their marriage certificates. If anyone has any ideas I'd really appreciate it.

Britt