It was nicknames in one of my German line families that helped me to identify someone in a photo. My grandmother's first photo album is labeled. Her mother's parents were German and French and their family all had nicknames. Mary was May; Barbara was Tot or Etta; Ann was Annie; Evangeline was Eva; Edward Louis was Lou; and the mysterious youth, Gill, in the photo that always included May and Eva (sisters), turned out to be, by my deduction, her son William. It finally dawned on me, because Etta was never married and lived with us for most of her life; when I discovered that her real name was Barbara, and then looked at all of the nicknames in that family, and noticed the Gill was always in the photo with May and her sister ( my g grandmother), Eva, it suddenly dawned on me that that was her son William; Evangeline's father was German and mother French/German ( Alsace Lorraine). Her father, Peter, had brothers that came here about the same time. It was very confusing to see a John Adam at an address in the city directory , one year, and an Adam the next year at the same address, and when they had a business to see both of them listed together,, until I went onto the Hesse list and found out that Germans used their second name, rather than their first- so they were one in the same! And because they were escaping a revolution, they kept a low profile until after the Civil War- they are in the directories, but not on records until after that war, and wait until after the war to become citizens. Sue