Joseph F. Smith, my great-great-grandfather, was born 169 years ago today. My grandmother Ellen always called him Grandpapa.
Lately, I have been getting into genealogy and family history. I was searching the internet for some information on my great-grandmother and great-grandfather, Minerva Smith Miller (Joseph F.'s daughter) and Matthew Alexander Miller, and I found the above photo on Wikipedia. I immediately assumed that it was the same photo as one that my mother has (of which we made a photocopy a few years ago).
I got out my copy of the Smith family photo and compared it to the Wikipedia one, and I started noticing minor differences. My great-grandmother, Minerva Miller, is in the row behind Joseph F. Smith, the third woman to the right of him (she is the petite woman wearing a dark dress with a white collar with dark upswept hair). Immediately behind her is my great-grandfather, Matthew Miller. He is holding my great-uncle, Willard Miller. I first noticed a difference in the two photos with Matthew and Willard, as Willard is to the right of Matthew in the above photo, but Willard is on Matthew's left in the copy that I have.
I started to look closer at the Wikipedia photo and noticed a number of people have minor differences. However, in the above photo, there is one major difference. Just to the left of Joseph F. Smith, there is a little boy who is picking his nose (click on the photo to enlarge). I guess it should come as no surprise that this one did not become the official one that went in the family's photo album.
