Hand-Me-Down Family

Years ago, Truli Powell’s mother received a box of photos from one of her husband’s cousins. Now Truli is trying to date and identify the images. She’s hoping that the cousin only gave them images from their specific line.

In this “like mother, like daughter” tintype, the mother and the woman in the back (I’m assuming grandmother) wear nearly identical dress designs and hats. This 1890s scene depicts three generations on an outing. I love the park bench as a prop.

In the second tintype Truli sent, a young man in a suit and coat poses with a painted backdrop that features a house and a wall. The “rock” in the foreground is supposed to create the illusion that he’s actually standing outdoors. Since backdrops usually reflect the area where someone lived, I wonder where this was taken.

Truli wants to know if this could be her great-great-grandfather Peter Floyd Powell (1832-1922). Unfortunately, that doesn’t appear to the case. This photo depicts a young man probably in his early 20s. From the neatly greased hair to the polished shoes, this is a young man who’s dressed very nicely for the late 1880s.

She sent another picture and I have to include it. Last week I focused on backdrops.

Here, two young girls posed behind a backdrop with cutouts for their heads. Their hats and the car date the picture to the early 1910s. One of the girls would be the right age to be the young girl on the bench in the first photo.

It’s too bad that Truli’s father’s cousin didn’t label the photos in some way, but hopefully the information in this column will help her put names with the faces.

Need help with your own mystery photos? Look for Maureen A. Taylor’s book Uncovering Your Ancestry Through Family Photographs.