A Newly Found Cousin

The past couple of weeks a distant cousin and I have been sharing information, photographs, documents, and stories about our shared Linn family.  His great-grandmother, Amelia Linn Wittich, was the sister of my great-great grandmother, Flora Linn Montgomery.  Our daily correspondence has been a lot of fun and together we try to untangle the threads that bind our ancestors.  

As it has turned out, we each have been able to share information, but his contribution, in my opinion, far outweighs mine.  While I have in my possession resources that he was unaware of, he has the items that I hold most dear - precious photographs that have given me the chance to see the faces of my great uncles, aunts, and distant grandparents.  Unfortunately, long before my time, the family photograph album belonging to my great grandmother, Amy Montgomery Becker, whose mother was Flora Linn, was destroyed.  Therefore, not one photograph of any Linn family member made it to current time or to my hands.  That is no longer true.  My distant cousin has graciously scanned and sent to me a number of old photos which I will be posting on my family blog, Family Lifetimes.

Along with these wonderful photos are a few mystery photos that we hope to be able to identify.  Some are children, which might prove to be a huge challenge and some have physical traits that seem to suggest a Linn connection.  The photo below is the one that we are concentrating on right now.  We thought it to be our common grandfather, Michael Linn, but after some careful consideration, we no longer believe it is him.  We are leaning towards this man being either Michael's father, Henry, born about 1790 in Germany and died 1874 in Ripley, Ohio or Michael's brother, Henry born 1815 - died 1899.

Any help towards dating or identifying the photo is greatly appreciated.