Fascinating question!

Sometimes JA's family portraits suggest that parental traits and temperaments are passed on/modeled to a child:

Marianne has her mother's emotionalism;
Lizzy has her father's irony;
Lydia has her mother's self-centeredness and frivolity;
Miss Elliott has Sir Walter's narcissism;
Isabella has Mr. Woodhouse's hypochondria and fussiness).

That list of examples suggests that first/older daughters model themselves on the father, and younger daughters on the mother. (It doesn't account for sons though.)

And that would imply that Elinor is like her father (or her father was like her).

Then it becomes interesting that in S&S and P&P, the mom and younger daughters are "childish" while the dad and older daughters are more self-controlled and rational... but in Emma and Persuasion, the fathers become increasingly weak role models and the older daughters weaker in character.