Celebrity Connection! Family Look-Alike Photos

Check out these celebrity cousin look-alike photos! A distant cousin of Katherine Hepburn compares photos with fun results.

Last fall, I blogged about a web app that uses facial recognition software to compare how closely two faces “match.” Since then, several people have sent in their own family look-alike photos. Here’s one with a new twist: a celebrity look-alike!

Celebrity Cousin Look-Alike Photos

Lydia wrote in with this: “I’ve had fun with the Twins or Not? app and here are some of my results. A bit over a year ago I broke down a brick wall and found Katherine Hepburn on the other side as a fifth cousin. Well, I do have strong cheekbones so I plugged in some of my photos and compared them to Hepburn’s. Here’s what I got!

In the first pic [shown right] you’ll find Leman Garlinghouse, Hepburn’s great grandfather, and my great-great grandfather, Tyler McWhorter. The two men were second cousins via the Garlinghouse family line. Leman Garlinghouse’s daughter married a Houghton man in the early 1850s and their daughter was Carrie Houghton, who grew up to be Katherine Hepburn’s mother. One doesn’t need photo comparison app to tell they were related!

The next one is one of my (old!) theatrical headshots and one of Hepburn:

Pretty cool, eh?”

I agree with Lydia! That’s pretty cool. You can find mobile apps that do this in the Google Play store and in iTunes. What a great way to spark interest in the look-alikes in YOUR family history at your next family gathering! Especially great for kids. (Just have some old family photos available on your mobile device to upload and compare with shots you can snap of living relatives.)

Remember that your mobile device can be your best go-to resource for genealogy-on-the-go. Use it to access your family tree, digitize a photo or document on the fly or share your latest find with a loved one. Learn how in my new book, Mobile Genealogy: How to Use Your Tablet and Smartphone for Family History Research.