Another conundrum! The name on the back of this photograph??

[loobylooayr]

Conundrum indeed Ruskie!
The Miss Marple in me really wants to solve this one, but like everyone else I can't find a candidate.

I would agree with     ?o?ie     Mi???     - the end of the surname (if indeed that's what it is) is a bit of a scrawl.

I had wondered if the child was a girl , but the wee soul  could be either sex.
Also wondered if the child could have been born abroad or Ireland ??
I don't know much about post-mortem photographs but I would assume there would be a bit of expense connected to this in the 1870s. So are we looking for an affluent family ? Or am I jumping to conclusions.

Looby

[roopat]

The handwriting looks very much like my (very English) grandmother's, I don't think it's a foreign hand, although not being able to find the name in the BMD records is strange.


When I first saw this, I immediately read the first name as Josie. I know the  'J' is different from January & the middle letter doesn't look like s - but then the B of born looks odd too. I must admit when I was taught joined-up writing I wrote T like the initial letter of the name & J like the first letter of January so I've no idea why my brain says it's Josie.


Added - could it start with F?


 


Pat

[Ruskie]

Not necessarily an affluent family I don't think Looby. They may have spent everything they had on the photograph .... 

I originally thought the child was male. Then, looking at the hair, I thought female. Now I am undecided. I would have thought a girl would have her hair neatly tied up, and a boy may have had his arranged differently ... although the hair has been cared for it looks quite puffy and unusual. 

[avm228]

I'm tending towards girl.  Does anyone else see what might be a ribbon at about hairline level, just visible at the temples?

This is a really baffling conundrum.  One would think the place of death must have been near-ish to the photographer's address, as presumably time was of the essence in this genre of photography.  But my (rather sad) trawl of deaths of 4 yr olds in Holborn and neighbouring districts in Mar qtr 1875 has not yielded any obvious candidates.

[DavidG02]

On the B in born and what possibilities it might be, its only a slight thing but I am going with B.

In both the B for Born and the middle letter the writer has curled back inwards, yet in the H in March and in 'the' the letter end directly proceeds away.

I agree the J in Jan is different and I would love to make an argument that it was a different writer as the ink looks different, but then it does on 'March' as well.

I am confident the last name is M-I-L-* as the L in loving and this word are similar. I wonder if the last letter is a final L

[Treetotal]

In common with others I  can only see Tobie Milne....I can't  see anything else that makes sense...I also think the child is a boy as they have a more prominent brow than girls. I also agree with Ruskie that the family would not necessarily be affluent....this was common practise in Victorian times as it would be the only reminder they had of the child if no previous photos existed.
Carol

[loobylooayr]

Thanks for the info re- the financial status of families who wished to have a post mortem photo as a keepsake.

Another suggestion - and apologies if this has been suggested already.
Is it possible that the name beginning with M......is in fact not a surname but a middle name?
If this photo was being kept as a memento by a parent or sibling perhaps they wrote the youngster's forenames?

Looby

[loobylooayr]

Possibly a red herring and I cannot find this child on 1871 Census but -

https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:2X4R-9SM   
Simeon Ragers T Mills born Jan/Feb/Mar 1871 Islington.

There is a death  https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:2JK3-LGM 
Simeon Mills  age 4 Jan/Feb/Mar 1875   at Axminster, Devon   
Don't know if these are the same boy.
And Axminster not exactly handy for a post mortem photograph by an Islington photographer. But as he is the closest I have found I thought I would point him out.

Looby 

[majm]

Well, here's my current thoughts on this conundrum...

I wonder if any the following helps … these are my thoughts after studying the handwriting and looking back at the many examples I have of the handwriting of six of my great grandparents (born in the 1840s and 1850s in NSW Australia, including one who was forced to write 'right handed').

Please, let’s accept that it is all written in the same hand, at one session, using a quill pen that needs frequent refilling.  Perhaps the inkwell was almost empty for the writer dipped that pen many times.   

So, starting with the ‘easy’ letters of the two words at the third line.

let us look at the Capital M in “Memory” and March”  …. To me this confirms that the second word starts with that same capital.  M

Looking at the fifth line (‘died’) we can see that that M is clearly followed by the letter ‘i’ .    YES, there’s a ‘dot’ missing in the word ‘loving’ at line one.   

Look at the word ‘loving’ again … and at the first letter the ‘l’ …. Agh …. It is similar to the next letter  so now we have Mil

Go down to ‘died’ again and we have the ‘e’  that is also found back at “Memory”  ….So now we have the first FOUR LETTERS in that name ….. we have MILE

It is possible that there is a fifth letter, but the writer ‘ran out of room’ on the card. I think there’s only FOUR letters, …. The writer seems to have run on tails (dags/ tags ?) ’ at the end of many words where the final letter ends  eg “In”  "Born” “died” and “March”


Now to the more difficult first word of that third line. 

There’s either five or six letters.  I think FIVE ….  (see earlier comments re tags at end on words)

There is NO capital letter to compare with this initial (capital) letter.  I read it as a capital T, but it could also be a J or an L or less likely an F or an S.   

The second letter is an ‘o’ (as in “Born” and “Memory” and “loving”) 

The third letter is a ‘b’ (NOT a ‘k’ or an ‘h’ ) It is poorly formed, the writer was too lazy to take the pen back to ‘join it up’  before moving on to the next letters, the ‘ie’ as in 'died'.

So to me the elusive two words are Tobie Mile and so my questions rush on …. Is there any dc showing up as registered in the first or second quarter of 1875 at GRO’s indexes.   I notice just two for MILE as a surname and immediately eliminate the one for a 46 year old chap.   
http://www.freebmd.org.uk/


Could Tobie be Robie?  I revisit the handwriting …. NOPE that is NOT an “R” which likely would be as difficult for this scribe to write as the “B” in Born ….     

That’s where I am ‘up to’       

Of course, Tobie Mile may well both be given names....    and the death may not have occurred within the GRO's realm.   

JM