Correction/Explanation Page

There are different views on the identities of the people in this picture. Here is a photo with identifications copied from a website titled Ralph McKnight Photos. The URL is http://www.nhn.ou.edu/cgi-bin/cgiwrap/~parker/CGI-Files/list.cgi

This photo is complicated because it includes children belonging to both James Richard Ross and Melvin Ross. It appears that the picture was set up to include the Ross children and grandchildren of Rachel Leah Smith Ross Radford from her first marriage to Andrew Jackson Ross. The two surviving sons of Rachel Leah Smith Ross from her first marriage were Richard Ross and Melvin Ross. Because Melvin Ross served some time in prison and his wife, Julia Elizabeth Smith Ross had died when this picture was taken, this explains why they were not in the picture. However, we are sure that some of the children of Melvin Ross are in the picture.

The main disagreement between our website and the Ralph McKnight website centers on the identification of the woman sitting, front row, right side, with a child on her lap. We had initially identified her as a daughter of Melvin Ross; Sarah Lovina Ross who had a baby by John Holden and then married William Thomas Morgan. Mr. McKnight identifies her as Sarah Susan Ross, daughter of James Richard Ross. We acknowledge that Mr. McKnight could have the correct identification because Lovina Ross was a larger woman and Susan Ross has finer facial features than Lovina. However, the 1880 census for Kanosh, Millard, Utah, which was taken about the same time as this family picture, lists Sarah Ross residing in the Richard Ross household. She is listed as a single female 16 years old and no baby is listed. The records on Sarah Susan Ross are not clear enough for us to say for sure that she is the woman in the picture.

Above is a list of the children of James Richard Ross as copied from the Ralph McKnight website.

We concede that the woman sitting front row right may well be Sarah Susan Ross. We will need to do more investigation to come to a final conclusion. However, this brings up another disagreement. We have the man standing, back row, center, identified as Francis Marion Ross, son of Melvin Ross. And the McKnight website has him identified as Willard Ivie, husband of Sarah Susan Ross. We are less inclined to concede that we have this man wrongly identified because we know that children of Melvin Ross are in the picture and because it appears that the picture was set up to include the children and grandchildren of Rachel Leah Smith Ross Radford.

And one small correction; We are sure that Rachel Leah Smith Ross Radford was named Leah and not Leer. This error has crept into records as people have had difficulty reading handwritten records.