How old would Phyllis be?

[kerryb]

Hi guys

I received this picture this week of my 4 x grt grandmother Phyllis Funnell as part of a printed leaflet about her husband Richard Hickman and their family after emigrating to Tasmania in 1842.

She died in 1879.  I am just wondering if someone can give me a guess at the date of the photo and perhaps someone can tell me something about the clothes she is wearing?

It looks to me like a black silk dress?

Sorry about the quality but it is a scan of a printed page.

Kerry

[Treetotal]

Hi Kerry...do you know when her husband died because she looks to be dressed in Mourning clothes to me.
Carol

[kerryb]

Hi Treetotal

Richard died in 1876 after falling out of a mulberry tree.  That is interesting, I did wonder whether it was mourning clothes myself, apparently Richard and Phyllis had been separated for the last 15 odd years of their lives with Richard living with one son in Geeveston and Phyllis living with another son in a wonderfully named Kangaroo Valley.

But it would seem they never divorced.

Kerry

[Treetotal]

Kerry she doesn't look 75 to me in this pic...and I think the pic was taken before 1876...perhaps you could link it with the death of a close family member...either a child or a paretn...just a thought.
Carol

[kerryb]

Hi Carol

Her children in Tasmania all died after her but there was the death of a grandson in the family she lived with who died at the age of 10 months in 1865.

Failing that there was her first (illegitimate) son, John who I am descended from who died in 1863 back in England, a cart wheel ran over him.

Kerry

[Gadget]

Hi Kerry

I think that those  caps are 1860s rather than 1870s. She might have been wearing them in the 70s but I'd say she was probably 65-70. Her face is very sunken.

Prue and OR are good on these 

Gadget

[toni*]

i have a picture with the setting just like that, i tried to attch it but probably didn't manage howver you can see it if you search rootschat for amelia pascoe

modified - actually you can't see the photo cos i posted it a while ago and it has now dissappeared!

anyway re my photo she had a black hat rather than white but the clothing was the same as was the pose byt he table in a leather backed chair , Amelia was b. 1813 and she died 1893, i considered she be in mourning clothes and her husband died in 1875

[PrueM]

Hi all 

Kerry, your lady's photo looks to me like it's a cropped-down version of a larger picture, as it has the hallmarks of a photo from the 1860s, in which case it would have been full-length.  The bonnet she is wearing was popular with older ladies right into the 1860s, although it had been fashionable some 20 years earlier.  I would put her in her early 60s as well, though she does look a bit younger than that (but I think that's just because the photo has faded out and you can't see details of her face, i.e. wrinkles).

Hope that helps 

Cheers
Prue

[mudge]

Here is a cleanup for you
Mudge