Talk:Alney McLean

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This article was started using public domain information from the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress. LarryQ 11:58, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Who is this man?

Is this Alney McLean?

According to page 71 of Otto Rothert's History of Muhlenberg County, Kentucky, the image to the left depicts Alney McLean, the subject of this article. However, according to The Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, the image is not Alney McLean, but Illinois Congressman John McLean. Because the Biographical Directory is such a huge work and cannot have a subject matter expert dedicated to every entry, I'm inclined to believe Rothert, a Kentucky historian, has it right, but I wanted to discuss it here before removing the image from John McLean, adding it to Alney McLean, and updating the image's information on Commons. It would be nice if we could find another image of one or the other, but since both men were born in the 18th century, that seems pretty unlikely. In fact, I think I already searched for other images of Alney McLean a couple of years ago. Acdixon ^{(talk • contribs • count)} 13:22, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

I think we should acknowledge that either source could have misidentified the photo. We don't know why the historian Rothert believed it to be Alney, and we don't know why the historians at the Senate Historical Office thought it was John. If I had to bet, I'd say that Rothert is right, but I think we should do what we can to be sure. I reject your reasoning about Rothert v. the Senate Historical Office, though. The photo was not the subject of the book, and McLean himself seems only to have been a minor subject. In any event, Rothert could easily have been looking for an image of Rep. McLean from that period and simply gotten the wrong one. After all, John's first term took place right between Alney's two terms.

I've also searched for each man and found nothing of use. Of course it is complicated by JM's not being the only John McLean of note in the 19th century. Because it would be wrong to simply decide between ourselves which is correct based on nothing more than speculation and hunch, we need to reach one or both of the sources. I don't know if Rothert is even alive, but I've sent an e-mail to the Senate Photo Historian asking them to investigate whether the image really is John. They have been good about responding in the past, so I would expect to hear something before long. Next week, with any luck. -Rrius (talk) 19:23, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

Unfortunately, we are about half a century too late to contact Otto Rothert. According to The Encyclopedia of Louisville he died in 1956. And apparently, he was in my hometown at the time, which would have made contacting him quite a bit easier had he lived! I agree that either source could be wrong; I was just expressing my opinion that Rothert was probably more likely to be right. His work was published in 1913 and Alney McLean died in 1841, so there wasn't that great a gap between the two. Plus, Rothert apparently lived much of his life in Muhlenberg County, where McLean lived from 1820 till his death, and apparently wrote articles for the local paper about the county's history for years before he finished his book. It's conceivable if not likely that he consulted directly with some of Alney's close descendents. Also, the next county over was named for McLean in 1854, so he was probably pretty well-known 'round these parts. None of that is conclusive, or maybe even persuasive, and it isn't really meant to be. Just getting my thoughts out there. Definitely I hope the Senate Historical Office gets back to you. I've had bad luck with historical societies and such in the past, so I never even considered that as an option. Let me know if you find out something. Acdixon ^{(talk • contribs • count)} 20:50, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

My reason for agreeing with you has to do with the fact that the Senate Historical Office is fallible. The mistakes I've found have been about dates of service and the like, and they've been very good about double checking and making corrections where necessary. I think all of my dealings with the Photo Historian have been about copyright, but that part of the office has been helpful as well. -Rrius (talk) 22:07, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

Hey folks, thanks for what's already been a lot of work on Alney McLean's page. I'm descended directly from Alney's father Ephraim and have been doing a lot of genealogical work on the family, so thought I'd add to the page. Please bear with me as I am obviously not great at advanced Wiki formatting, but I'm genuinely trying to follow the rules. I plan to replace my online sources with citations to actual published works within the next few days (so as to prevent 'link rot.')

As to the photo of Alney: researchers at the Greenville, Kentucky archives appear to believe the photo attached to Alney's page is actually Alney, and distribute bookmarks, postcards, etc. that discuss his founding of the town that include the photo here. Will continue to discuss the photo with other family researchers and will update if I find relevant information. I agree that Rothart is likely a definitive authority on anything to do with Muhlenberg; his works are revered here! Tnhybrid (talk) 22:42, 1 December 2014 (UTC)