Margaret Estella Jones was born enslaved in Kirksville, Missouri, around 1838. She had four children: Estella, Biddy, James and Clarence.

In the 1870 census, the first census where formerly enslaved people were counted as individuals and not as part of their owners' estate, Jones is living with an elderly couple, James and Susan Jones. Ten years later, she is living with all of her children, including Estella's husband and child. In 1910, the last census where Jones appears, she is in her seventies and still living in Kirksville, Missouri. 

The information listed on the record of this photograph is a bit misleading. Effie Doughty Daniels was actually the granddaughter of Margaret Jones. Effie was born in 1895 to Margaret's daughter Estella. By 1915, Effie and her husband Walter were living in Minneapolis with their two children.