Look-alike Competition: Results

Look-alike Competition: Results

A few weeks ago we asked you to send in your look-alike photos and the response has been amazing!

We want to thank all of you who submitted. It was great to see uncanny family resemblances between the generations.

With so many photos submitted from around the world, it was really difficult to choose a winner.

But without further ado, we’d like to wish congratulations to Sheila Van Zant who sent in these incredible look-alike images produced 200 years apart!

Honorable John Brownlow First Viscount Tyrconnel, Knight of the Molt Honorable Order of the Bath (c.1740) and John Brownlow (born 1953)

Honorable John Brownlow First Viscount Tyrconnel, Knight of the Molt Honorable Order of the Bath (c.1740) and John Brownlow (born 1953)

Some of the photos made us do a double-take, including the following three runner-up entries:

Louis Beckstrom (born 1917) and great-grandson Mathew Beckstrom (born 1995)

Louis Beckstrom (born 1917) and great-grandson Mathew Beckstrom (born 1995)

Born 87 years apart: Great-grandmother Michelle and great-grandaughter Lucy

Born 87 years apart: Great-grandmother Michelle and great-grandaughter Lucy

Great-grandfather Benjamin and great-grandson John

Great-grandfather Benjamin and great-grandson John

Here are some more of our favorite photos from around the world including Sweden, the Netherlands, Brazil, USA, Australia and Germany.

Great-grand-aunt Ida (b. 1898) and great-grand-niece Caroline (age 34)

Great-grand-aunt Ida (b. 1898) and great-grand-niece Caroline (age 34)

Grandmother Caroline (age 10) with grandaughter Jackie (age 24)

Grandmother Caroline (age 10) with grandaughter Jackie (age 24)

Grandfather Henry Daniel (age 21) and grandson Casey Edward (age 21)

Grandfather Henry Daniel (age 21) and grandson Casey Edward (age 21)

Maternal first cousins Walter and Juan

Maternal first cousins Walter and Juan

Mother Kae and daughter Laura, taken about 20 years apart

Mother Kae and daughter Laura, taken about 20 years apart

Taken 120 years apart: Olaus (born 1871) and Max (born 1991)

Taken 120 years apart: Olaus (born 1871) and Max (born 1991)

Taken some 100 years apart: Great-grand-uncle Jakob (age 21) and great-grand-nephew Daniel (age 19)

Taken some 100 years apart: Great-grand-uncle Jakob (age 21) and great-grand-nephew Daniel (age 19)

There are lots more photos that we couldn’t include in one blog post. Check our Pinterest album to see all the amazing entries.

Photos (and other images, such as paintings) capture the essence of people, places and things and are among the most desirable of family history treasures. An old photo can tell a family story and teach you about the lives of your ancestors.

Have you learned any stories through your old family photos? Let us know in the comments below!

Comments

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  • Dale C. Rice

    July 20, 2015

    My ancestry includes dozens of great houses in Europe, and the current descendants are just as amazing even though 17 generations have come and gone. DNA does not recognize an ancestor face after 7 generations they say the genetics message has been cut in half too many times….But in our family the faces reappear because the families of 1500 have rejoined up in 1900 and brought their faces back to life…a strange kind of reincarnation. The only way that’s possible is for the DNA to reselect the ancient line because of a kind of recognition and preference for that earlier DNA in the current generation. 1948 of the Nebraska Rice’s

  • Eleanor Prieskorn

    July 20, 2015

    What a wonderful idea, and how much some of them look reincarnated if you believe in that sort of thing.
    Ellie

  • Marion

    July 20, 2015

    What fun – great idea – thanks for sharing – enjoyed it a lot – thanks!

  • T. Gentry

    July 21, 2015

    Amazing look a-likes and I enjoyed them all.

  • Pat Krenik

    July 21, 2015

    I don’t think your number one pick look very much alike. Takes a stretch of imagination.

  • Dyan

    July 21, 2015

    There are some truly amazing lookalikes here!

  • Sue

    July 21, 2015

    I think Grandmother Jackie and Granddaughter Caroline should have been #1. No denying their relationship. Great and fun idea . I do it all the time with family photos. Thanks

  • Norma

    July 21, 2015

    I don’t think your number one pick look very much alike either.

  • LouAnn

    July 21, 2015

    Way awesome idea really cool how so many people look like their ancestors thanks for sharing

  • Maria R

    July 21, 2015

    Others look more alike than the number one pick. My vote would have been for Jackie and Caroline or Olaus and Max.

  • yvonne kolbe

    July 21, 2015

    These are remarkable photos. So many generations separate some of them and they still look so alike!
    Keep showing them to us please!

  • frances molina

    July 21, 2015

    Enjoyed looking at these photographs. If seen under other circumstances one could say they were the same person!

  • Tanya Barwick

    July 22, 2015

    Really great I really enjoyed the photos would be great to find look alikes in my family. Maybe one day I will.Tanya Barwick

  • deanna iceton nee mcdonald

    July 22, 2015

    these folk are so lucky to have photos of relies. i cant find any records on my paternal grt/grandmother after 40ys searching.

  • Maggie Hill

    July 22, 2015

    On the news recently showing Waterloo bicentennial celebrations, I was staggered to see the facial resemblance between Napoleon’s descendant and his forebear. Although the younger Napoleon is a lot taller, their features were uncannily alike.

  • Joyce Howard (Boyajian)-English Teacher

    July 22, 2015

    Super idea !

  • Brenda ansell

    July 22, 2015

    I absolutely lookalikes in families. Really enjoyed it.

  • Eileen McAdam

    July 23, 2015

    Although my choice for #1 would differ greatly from that selected, I really enjoyed viewing the matched duos.

  • Ann Brand

    July 23, 2015

    Great idea,Olaus and Max for me,My mother and Grandaughter Amy looked alike to when Amy was age of (9)

  • Michelle Pyle

    July 23, 2015

    I am a distant Cousin of the famous WWII Journalist Ernie Pyle. We are each descended from two Brothers who emigrated from England in 1683!! That is where our lines split off…and yet there is STILL an amazing Family resemblance after all these centuries! Same build, same coloring, same ears…and last but certainly not least…what we in the Family still call ‘The Pyle Chin’.

  • DED

    July 24, 2015

    To be honest, I think your number 1 is the least like his ancestor of them all, some of which are the spitting image of their ancestor.

  • Amanda

    July 24, 2015

    The 5th one looks really alike

  • Wingushkwe

    July 24, 2015

    Very awesome and good idea

  • James Bright

    July 24, 2015

    All excellent-my choice is Michelle & Lucy for looking not only so much alike but also for having the same beautiful smiles – and what a modern looking great – grandmother !

  • Pamela Laibl

    July 25, 2015

    The baby pictures of my son and his daughter, and my grandson and his daughter leave no doubt they are related!

  • Kimberly Godbold

    July 25, 2015

    I love the look a like photos! We have them in our family! My grandmother and her mother look so much alike that as a child, I thought that a picture of my great grandmother was my grandmother. Also, if you looked at pictures of my oldest sister, myself, and my daughter together, if they weren’t from different times and photo quality, you would think they were the same baby! I loved the look alike photos but I think number one wasn’t as good as most of the others, especially the granddaughter and grandmother!

  • Dawn

    July 25, 2015

    Always wondered who my brother looked like. He looks like my fathers uncles.

  • margaret morgan

    July 25, 2015

    Quite astounding. Thank you. maggie

  • Brenda

    July 25, 2015

    Loved it!!

  • Nata Garbett

    July 25, 2015

    I have a picture of an ancestor that we are not sure how she is related and my niece that have a very striking resemblance.

  • Penelope Rijkaart-Berrington.

    July 26, 2015

    These photos are stunning. I have a first cousin`s son who is the spitting image of my great grandfather. Looking at these photos shows me just how strong the genes are.

  • Jan Glover

    July 27, 2015

    I am fortunate to have some original photos and researched information. It is amazing how family likenesses and traits follow through from generation to generation.

    The photos shown are fascinating.

  • Charlie Howe

    July 27, 2015

    No 1 look nothing like each othe winners should have been Caroline and Jackie or the two little boys but lovely pictures and very interesting as well thankyou for sharing them.

  • Terri

    July 28, 2015

    I used to say that my brother looked just like our grandfather, but no one believed it until I did side by side photos of them, and threw in a photo of our gg-grandfather as well – they could have been triplets!

  • shirley

    July 30, 2015

    Great idea, what fun. To be honest I didn’t think the winners looked like and, taken feature by feature, only the double chin matched – perhaps it was the Viscount bit that appealed. However, all of the others were great – and even some of the personalities seemed the same.

  • Irene Kaiser

    November 22, 2015

    In 2013, I received a photo from my cousin of my Grandmother on her wedding day in Indonesia, 1904. It is astounding how much I look like her. A striking resemblance. I would love to submit a photo.

  • ety

    August 7, 2016

    I came here because I find it weird how resemblance and traits in apperance travels or not through generations and how they intersect even though they shouldn’t. Oftentimes you see someone looking like their aunt or greatgreatgrand-uncle or third cousin. I guess the traits (?) leaps through generations so that they keep appear randomly rather than stay intact all through the years. What’s weird is how there are traits in my mother and her grandmother that looks like noone else in the (Swedish) line of faces, but exactly like stereotypical Maroccan Berber women, my mom always felt a bit different-looking but jokes about her ancestor being abducted by Vikings in Marocco a thousand years ago. When I see pictures of Berber women I see the significant traits of my mum (like the way she smiles, her neckline, her lilac-hued lips, a glimpse in the eye) that I never see in anyone but my mum in these random stranger Berber ladies! It’s so weird. (this family have been living in a remote place for hundreds of years. ) Even if this or something like it was actually the case, how could traits possibly travel through like 35 generations?

  • Nick S.Verdi

    September 14, 2016

    I dig the pics,makes me even more curios about relitives!!!

  • Karen Francois

    May 24, 2017

    Im here to find my family n my fathers side also where my moms father and mothers family come from