A 3D Look at the Past

Welcome TWITTER Followers! This is the story so far:

I'm always looking for ways to better connect with my family's story; invariably, technology has provided more and more ways to do so. However, seldom has it provided ways as startling as this...

My son introduced me to a program called FaceGen, which enables the user to create a 3D portrait out of 2D photos. I fooled around with it for a couple days and found the results amazing. Naturally, I subjected all my family to endure a photo session which was as fun for them as getting their mug shots taken. Nevertheless, they humored me and I got some pretty outstanding models made of them.

FaceGen does not recommend using portraits done as drawings, but I had to try to see how well it would work with the photo of William's engraving, which appears at the top of this blog. I followed the directions for selecting key areas of the face for the program to use in the creation of the model, and then I hit go. About five minutes later, FaceGen delivered this:

FaceGen model of my 3rd great-grandfather, William Jennings (1821-1872)

Corey Jennings (1878-1933), my grandfather.

The original photo of Corey

Pretty stunning! It did a couple interesting things, like not rendering his beard (which I'm cool with), as well as making him appear a little younger than I thought it would. Nevertheless, to see the portrait of my 3rd great-grandfather in a manner that he would never have imagined is pretty startling. What's even eerier, my wife saw it and said, "Who is that? I know him!" She couldn't believe it when I told her!

I also tried the same thing with the best photo of my grandfather, Corey. Again, despite the poor quality of the photo, the result is awesome! Corey died in 1933 (needless to say, I never met him), but at certain angles he bears a resemblance to my father -- his son!


My goal is to someday create an entire family portrait using FaceGen -- all six generations of Jennings Men, which would include my son and myself. Now, that will be amazing!

Look for FaceGen HERE. 

I'm Coming to Get You, Paul Bishop Jennings!

I did it. Just now. Bought a DNA kit, . Hoping that 2016 will be the year I'll solve one of the family's most puzzling genealogy questions...well, as far as I'm concerned: How were Paul Bishop Jennings and William Jennings related?

As far as the Jennings research, there's an organization based in Bath, England that will look into records for you for a small fee. My strategy will be to do that, and also to contact hits that I get through the DNA test. My other strategy involves finding a descendant of the guy I suspect was William's uncle (Paul Bishop Jennings) and hope that they have had the DNA test done as well.

Wish me luck? And William, if you're out there, I could use a hand here!