Which Ancestor Do You Look Like?

When my Dad rode up the elevator in our NYC apartment building, he was often asked if he was my father.
I always thought I looked just like him and just like pictures of his mom, except for my nose which came from my mother’s side.

The other day my brother showed me a cool new tool that compares a picture of yourself to pictures of any ancestors whose photos are in the FamilySearch tree. Needless to say I promptly uploaded every ancestor image I could find!

This tool is called Compare-a-Face and is part of the FamilySearch Discovery suite of tools. It is currently featured on the FamilySearch home page when you log in.

I soon discovered that the original photo of me did not get compared to the new ancestor photos that I had just put there, so I uploaded another one. I had to try several different pictures of me to get the result I wanted from the comparison to my Dad’s mom.

Notice that the images are shown in order of how like you they are: the best on the left to least on the right. You click on any little image at the top to get it front and center with a percentage of simularity.

 

There were significant variations from photo to photo. I was surprised to share looks with anyone on my mother’s side at all. I really do not see where the 10% I have in common with Jacob is. But no ancestor got less than 10% so I am dubious.

However I liked the 17% that I got with my incredibly beautiful maternal grandmother. The nose?

 

 

I have always said that I have my great great grandmother Anna Knutsdatter’s eyes. She is the one who looks a bit Amerindian to me, and may be the source of our Finnish and North Artic DNA.

As you can see this was a wonderful way to while away an afternoon!

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7 thoughts on “Which Ancestor Do You Look Like?

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  1. That tool is like a Microsoft tool called “Twins or Not” or something like that. My great great grandfather Tyler McWhorter was an 85% “twin” with his second cousin Leman Garlinghouse. Even with photos of Tyler as an old man, the tool still found their strong resemblance. Garlinghouse’s great granddaughter was an actress in the 1930s-1990s. See if you can figure out who she was!

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