jtk - I do plan on buying his adjustable height holder along with the glass, hoping he surfaces and is ok.
Your image of ancestors reminds me of scans I made from old family negs some years ago. My grandparents had an adopted child, maybe 10 years older than my mother and her siblings, who had some physical issues but was very bright, was in the merchant marines and was an ardent photographer, 1920's and later. When my grandmother was close to the end, she gave my mother what negs she had of his, me being the family photographer (she was the wife of the guy in the picture I posted.) I have been astounded at the quality of the images from those negs. Much better than any prints that have survived.
Attached here is one from a neg (slightly larger than 6x9cm) of my great grandmother, same farm. This is the mother of the guy in the earlier post. It didn't look just like this at initial scan, I did a lot of curve adjusting, in layers with masking to bring out the values you see here, but no actual reconstruction.
