Are These Photographs of Abraham Lincoln?

Facial Features Analysis and Comparison Are The Answer

by Joelle Steele

Everybody recognizes Abraham Lincoln when they see his photo — or do they? There are several photos being circulated throughout the World Wide Web, and the owner of each believes they have a previously unknown photographic portrait of Lincoln. In some cases, they have retained a variety of experts to support their theories, while other experts have refuted those same theories. Could any of these controversial photos really be those of Abraham Lincoln?

LINCOLN WANNA-BE'S

PHOTO #1: Unidentified Man, early 1840s, photographer unknown ("Kaplan" photo). Identified as a Daguerreotype of a "young Abraham Lincoln" by its owner, a man named Albert Kaplan, who purchased the Daguerreotype in New York in 1977 as a "portrait of a young man."

PHOTO #2: Unidentified Man, 1875-1895, photographer unknown ("Cruz" photo). Identified as a Daguerreotype (but looks like a tintype) and was purchased by Ivan Cruz of New Jersey, who believes it is a young Lincoln. Cruz bought the photo in about 2003 as part of an old album that contained pictures of Lincoln and his wife and kids, so it has good provenance.

PHOTO #3: Unidentified Man with Two Women, 1850s, photographer unknown ("Trio" photo). Identified as an ambrotype of Lincoln with his wife, Mary Todd Lincoln (in the middle), and her sister Elizabeth Todd Edwards (on the right). Owner's name unknown.

PHOTO #5: Unidentified Man from group photo, allegedly taken at a Peace Convention in Washington, DC in 1861 ("Ellison Collection" photo). An enlargement of a man seated in the front row to the far left, in a group photo owned by Greg Ellison and Michele Ellison, a.k.a. the Ellison Collection.

THE REAL LINCOLN

PHOTO #6: Abraham Lincoln. A Daguerreotype, the oldest known photograph of Lincoln. Called Meserve #1, because it is the first photo of Lincoln in "The Photographs of Abraham Lincoln" by Frederick Hill Meserve.

PHOTO #7: Abraham Lincoln. An 1862 Matthew Brady photo of Lincoln.

Here's what I determined after comparing and measuring the faces and ears of PHOTOS #1 thru #6 with two of the 120 known authentic photos of Lincoln.

THE KAPLAN PHOTOGRAPH (PHOTO #1)

I ruled out PHOTO #1 as Lincoln. First of all, it doesn't look at all like Lincoln. But, I still examine the wanna-be Lincoln photos to prove my own findings. After measuring the faces, the most glaring difference was that the unidentified man's eyes are proportionately bigger in relation to the size of his face and head than are Lincoln's eyes, which are smaller in relation to the size of his face and head. And the eyes are not subject to changes in size over time in anyone once they are an adult. But the easiest way to see the difference is to look at the ears. They are distinctly different, and ears do not lie. When I'm comparing facial features for the purpose of authenticating the identity of someone in a photograph, I first look at the ears if they are visible. They are extremely important and highly reliable in identification. Like fingerprints, no two are alike, and sometimes, like with Lincoln, his ears don't match each other..

Lincoln's left ear.

PHOTO #1, left ear.

THE CRUZ PHOTOGRAPH (PHOTO #2)

I immediately ruled out PHOTO #2 as Lincoln. I did this for three reasons. 1) The man in the photo does not even resemble Lincoln; 2) The clothing is from around the early-to-mid 1880s, at least twenty years after Lincoln died; and 3) Lincoln experts Dr. Thomas Schwartz and Dr. James Cornelius, of the Lincoln Collection at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library & Museum in Springfield, Illinois state that it is not Lincoln.

Cruz said that Schwartz and Cornelius said that it was Lincoln. I found that hard to believe, so I personally contacted them, and Dr. Cornelius responded on their mutual behalf as follows: "Mr. Cruz has pestered us through various pseudonyms and we have asked him to desist. The words he quotes from anyone here are fabricated. We can believe nothing he says, writes, or does. The photo is plainly someone from the 1870s."

THE TRIO PHOTOGRAPH (PHOTO #3)

I immediately ruled out PHOTO #3 as being Lincoln with Mary Todd Lincoln and her sister Elizabeth Todd Edwards. The clothing is a hodge-podge of styles, with the most recent pieces (the man's tie and hat) being from the mid-to-late 1850s. The auction house claims that this is a Lincoln photo on the sketchiest evidence: 1) that the man is wearing Lincoln's trademark "stove pipe" hat; 2) that the man's left hand is draped down because "it is a known fact" that Lincoln had Marfan's syndrome; and 3) that facial recognition experts found 8 of 15 points that matched with 15 known Lincoln photographs. All of this is pure nonsense.

Here's what I find: 1) Tall or top hats came into fashion in the late 1790s, and they remained in fashion with only the slightest variations (the one in the trio photo is from around the late 1850s) for more than 100 years! A stove pipe hat does not a Lincoln make; 2) It is not a known fact that Lincoln had Marfan's syndrome. That is a very weak and speculative theory, and one that can never be proved without exhuming Lincoln's remains. Besides, I have several of my own family photos in which someone's hand is draped down casually over someone else's shoulder in the same way, and they don't have Marfan's syndrome; and 3) These unidentified facial recognition experts found 8 of 15 points in Lincoln's face. Facial recognition software is not sufficient for the authentication of faces in photographs. Comparing faces requires 100% exactness, not probabilities. And, unless the original image shows Lincoln's eyes very clearly, that is a huge omission in their analyses. I also looked at the traits with underlying bone structure to determine their size and placement on the head and face, and then compared them to known photographs of Lincoln, and I did not see any resemblance to Lincoln in this photo at all.

But, let's just forget about whether or not it's Lincoln. Nobody seems to have bothered to analyze the images of the women purported to be Mary and Elizabeth. Below are two known photographs of Mary and her sister Elizabeth. I compared the individual facial features in PHOTO #3 with the two known images of Mary and Elizabeth.

Above: Mary Todd Lincoln, authentic photograph.

Above: Elizabeth, sister of Mary, authentic photograph.

Nothing in the faces of the two women in PHOTO #3 matches the authentic faces of Mary or Elizabeth. With Mary, the bone structure is all off. The face shape and cheeks don't match known photos of Mary; the mouth and chin are not a match; and neither are the brow line or the distance between the eyes. With Elizabeth, bone structure is also off. The mouth and chin are not a match, and neither is the brow line. All other features are either not visible (e.g., the ears) or are not sufficiently clear to compare. Bones don't lie. The women in PHOTO #3 are not Mary and Elizabeth.

THE HAY WADSWORTH PHOTO

Once again, I ruled out this photo as a Lincoln. I knew at first glance that the Hay Wadsworth image was not of Lincoln because it doesn't look like him. But, I always do the comparison and analysis anyway, just to confirm it.

Briefly, the forehead and hairline do not match; the philtrum (that little ridge between the nose and mouth) is not a match; the mouth in the Hay Wadsworth photo is larger in proportion to the face than in Meserve #1; the ear lobe sticks out further in Meserve #1; the brow in Meserve #1 is much more extended; the eyes are more deeply set in Meserve #1; the chin is shorter in the Hay Wadsworth; and the nose in the Hay Wadsworth is thicker. With so many features not matching, it is clear that the Hay Wadsworth photo is not of Lincoln.

THE ELLISON PHOTOGRAPH

Once again, I ruled this out as a Lincoln. I cropped out the image of the unidentified man seated on the far left to get a good look at it. Not a match for Lincoln. Not even close. Not a single feature that matches those of Lincoln. That includes the ears which are placed too low and at the wrong angle on the head.

SUMMARY

I have no clue who the unidentified men are in these photos. The only thing I do know for sure is that bones do not lie, neither do ears, and neither do facial features or clothing styles. It is very easy to be blinded by wanting something to be what it is not or cannot be. I'd be thrilled to be able to say that any of these photos are those of Lincoln. What wonderful historic finds they would be! But they are not Lincoln, and I don't want to be yet another person who perpetuates a myth on the Internet — home of far too many inaccuracies and way too much misleading information. I also don't want to insult the memory of a great man like Lincoln by saying these are images of him when they are not. This article is my opinion as someone who has been authenticating faces in old photographs since the 1975. However, the fact that some of these photos have been floating around the Web for so many years and that no one — no museum, no library, no wealthy collector — has ever acquired them, would alone seem to be sufficient to confirm my findings, that they are not photos of Abraham Lincoln.