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This is virtually unrecognisable.

Can anyone do anything with it?

Massive thanks in advance.

Hi,

It is a 15HP Napier, and the bodystyle is 'side entrance tonneau'. Certainly a lot later than 1905... cca 1911/12. All this however, does not date the photo but puts it into, or after, WW1. I hope you don’t mind me using your photo on our car identification Help Pages

That is tremendous - thank you. By all means use the picture.

I now have a complete chart going back six generations to my 3rd G-Grandparents.* That's pretty cool. Perhaps I shouldn't be asking for more. But the more you have, the more you want. 

I am now completely stuck to find any more direct ancestors. Quite often I have a marriage but cannot find the parents of one party - or indeed either of them. Without parents' names on marriage records, or at least an unusual surname, it is hard to go any further back. And often these older records are inherited and have no citations: I have no reason to doubt them, but...

Here are two examples:


1/ Mary COLLINS, b. 21 Jul 1822, Stoke Damerel, Devon**. I think can take her mother Ann SHOBBROOK back one more generation to her parents Joseph and Mary***, but all I have for her father is 'James COLLINS, mariner, b. ABT 1795' (inherited info - no citation).

I have no firm birth year or birthplace. Without a census for 1801 how can I possibly hope to find James's parents?

2/ Elizabeth BELL, b. ABT 1783 Satley, Durham, m. William RAINE, 21 Mar 1807 Satley. She's in census 1851 (with Francis BENNOCH) at Blackheath Park, Lewisham and 1861 (ditto) at The Knoll, Lewisham Hill, London. ****


I've got several like that. So is there more I can do? Or should I just give up and be grateful?

All suggestions welcomed!


========

* I have the following:

Gen 6: 32/32 (100% - yay!)
Gen 7: 45/64
Gen 8: 49/128
Gen 9 39/256

** Mary appears in census 1841 in Coldridge, Crediton, Devon. She marries Langford FROST, Q2 1843, Liverpool 20 171, and appears in later censuses:

1861: Downderry, St Germans.
1871: 7 St Stephens Road, St Germans.
1881: Dunheved House, Saltash.

[1851 n/a: Mary was in Ireland - see the birth of her daughter Elizabeth]

We also have CRO Doc X1338/3/6, leases and abstract of title, property in High Street, Launceston: 

"Conveyance, two houses, shops, offices, stables, yards, High Street, Launceston. 25 Mar 1873. Parties: 1) Langford Frost, esquire, of Saltash, late captain in 57th Regiment who married his present wife Mary in 1843; 2) John Nicolls..."

*** Ann Collins nee Shobbrook
Census 1841: shopkeeper, Coldridge, Crediton, Devon. Also present, Mary Shobbrook age 75.
Mary Shobbrook died 1850 in Crediton reg dist and there is a useful postem on the record at FreeBMD:

"Died 29 November 1850, Coldridge, age 82, Widow of Joseph Shobbrook, Blacksmith. Death reported by Ann Collins (Present at death, of Coldridge)"


**** I have a possible lead from The Law Advertiser 1831:

"'Bell, Anthony, formerly of Broomshields afterwards of Consett, farmer, then of Friarside in Tanfield, also of Wickham and Swalwell, farmer, miller and shopkeeper, afterwards of Hetton stream-mill, carrying on business with William Raine under the firm of Bell and Raine, millers Hetton stream-mill, and late of Easington lane, near Hetton le Hole, all in Durham, grocer and flour dealer.'

Is that Elizabeth's father in partnership with her husband? Could be...

According to his diary, John Russell RA (1745-1806) painted a pastel portrait of Rev John Dunkin in 1769. Writing in 1894, George C Williamson records this, and says that the painting is 'missing'.

So perhaps it's on somebody's wall somewhere. Other than watching 'Antiques Roadshow' every week, does anyone have any idea how it might be traced?

The National Portrait Gallery has records of British portraits in public and private collections around the world, mostly derived from exhibitions or sale rooms. A helpful email from the NPG confirms that 'a portrait would have been a valuable possession', suggesting that it might still survive, but says that they have no record of it.

Maybe the picture has lost its attribution; as the NPG says "identities and attributions can slip and what was once recognised as a specific ancestor may much later be known only as 'portrait of an unknown man'". An online search for Russell portraits of unknown sitters has turned up nothing that looks likely.

In the NPG collection is a Russell portrait of 1769 (in oils) of William Dodd, which gives us his style at the time. John Dunkin's obituary in The European Magazine and London Review, Jan 1809, says that he died aged 82; by that count he would have been 42 when the portrait was made (though a baptism record of Sep 1730 suggests that he may have been a year or two younger).

The minister of the Jamaica Row meeting at which John Dunkin preached was Rev John Townsend. There is an engraving of Townsend in his memoirs (artist unknown), from which we may perhaps infer the style of dress that Dunkin would have adopted.

http://blogs.ucl.ac.uk/library-rnid/2012/09/07/rev-john-townsend-1757-1826-founder-of-the-london-asylum/

So we have an artist, a date, a stylistic reference point, an age for the sitter, and a clue as to his mode of dress.

Just no picture...

Any thoughts?