The Earliest Born Person Ever Photographed

Comments · 2.3K

• KI

  @kingsandthings · 4 years ago · pinned

  There are a lot of uncertainties and contradictory information about these people, so take what I said here with a grain of salt. For example I nearly included Joseph Souberbielle, a surgeon who played a part in the French revolution, before realizing that the man in the photo had probably been erroneously identified as him. He was a close friend of Robespierre and was charged with keeping Marie Antoinette alive for the duration of her trial. Apparently he started every day by singing a verse of the Marseillaise instead of saying a morning prayer. <br> <br>I also forgot to say that Conrad Heyer is listed by some sources to have been born in 1753, not 1749. He is also claimed to have once been a bodyguard of George Washington.

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• RE

  @recognizesealand572 · 3 years ago

  Just to be clear the 1850s may seem insanely long ago, but there where people born around then who saw sputnik.

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• HO

  @horrortackleharry · 3 years ago (edited)

  When I was a kid in the 1970s, there was a very old man who came into my dad&apos;s shop for a cup of tea now and again; he told us that when he was a little boy like me, he spoke to an old man who had fought against Napoleon at Waterloo.

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• AN

  @AntyMDkl · 3 years ago

  I have a photo of my great-great-great grandmother who was born in 1790 in Isimir Turkey during the Ottoman Empire and she died at the age of 94 in 1884. She was a Greek Christian who fled persecution to Alexandria in Egypt, married a French soldier in Napoleon’s army and started our family roots in the Middle East. Sadly the family left Egypt during the Nasser revolution in the 1960s…The photograph I have of her is when she was around 90 years old and she wrote on the back in her own beautiful handwriting “Old in appearance, young in spirit”…wish I could’ve known her.

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• KE

  @kevinchambers1101 · 3 years ago

  My godmother as a child saw queen Victoria. That always made me understand how close the past history is to our own lives.

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• TO

  @toddw14 · 3 years ago

  Its absolutely incredible to see a photograph of someone born in the early 1700s, who also would&apos;ve lived amongst people born in the mid-late 1600s.

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• AL

  @almonteGuy · 2 years ago

  This is so good, and a reminder of something I tell my kids often: &quot;The past wasn&apos;t so long ago.&quot; I&apos;m 67 and I have clear memories of my great-grandmother, who was born in 1875. She, in turn, told me stories about a great-uncle she knew as a child, who was born in 1793. So I knew someone who knew someone who lived in the 18th century. That makes it seem a lot closer in time, somehow.

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• FE

  @feraudyh · 3 years ago

  Back around 1977 I had a friend who met someone who was so old that he danced with someone who had danced with Marie-Antoinette.

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• SA

  @sarapatrick2143 · 3 years ago

  I remember my grandma telling me about the first time she spoke on a telephone. She was 19 years old and it was a phone in town she remembered being so in awe that you could hear someone’s voice in real time when they aren’t near you.

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• HA

  @Hap_Shaughessy · 1 year ago

  My grandfather talked to a civil war vet when he was a kid in the 1930s.

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• HE

  @hejnersge · 3 years ago

  I am from Germany and have a favorite ancestor who lived from 1698-1782. When I think that these people were born here around 1750 and could have known and seen my great-grandfather of seven generation, I get goosebumps.

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• BA

  @barabi51 · 2 years ago

  My dad, who was born exactly 60 years after Abraham Lincoln was shot (April 14) has told me that his grandmother remembered that day. She was just a little girl but hearing the news and seeing the people weeping made an impression on her.

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