Head-to-Toe 1920s Wedding Fashion
June is a popular month for weddings, so Diane Smith's submission of a mystery photo is a perfect way to start off the summer bridal season. Her maternal great-grandmother owned this picture. Could this be a picture of Diane's great-grandfather's parents, who married in Poland in 1876? Diane's in for...
Read MoreLabeling Old Photos: A Good Deed
Along the bottom edge of this photo someone wrote: "Noland...Ohio." One of the problems is that on the back Melanie Ohm's mother and aunt wrote that this image depicts Martha Ann Noland Hammond (1843-1870), George Hammond and Mary Hammond as well as a statement: "This would be...
Read MoreFirst Photo Mystery of 2015
Diana Luellen and her father found this old photo at his sister's house almost 20 years ago. A lot of the aunt's pictures were identified, but the portrait of this man and several others were not. Diana emailed me that "this is the one I keep on my computer desk...
Read MoreMystery Photos in an Old Family Album
Whenever I see a old photo album, I want to curl up in a cozy chair and read it like a favorite book. That's because every album tells a story based on who put it together, who's included (and who's not!), and when it was laid out. One of...
Read MoreNorth of the Border Old-Photo Mystery
Jane Smith owns this lovely photo of a young girl and an older man. She hopes it depicts her great-grandfather Patrick Hughes, born in 1836 in County Down, Ireland. He died in 1899 in Toronto, Canada, after a successful career as a merchant. The picture was found in a...
Read MoreThe Well-Dressed Couple Again and Solving a Group Photo Mystery
Last week I showed you a picture of an unknown well-dressed couple circa 1905. Where there's one unidentified photo there are usually more. That's true for Amir Evenchik's collection of images. He owns several other pictures of the same couple taken a few years later. Unfortunately, no one can identify...
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A Well-Dressed Couple
Old pictures have a tendency to turn up unexpectedly. For Amir Evenchik, this photo was recently found at his parent's house. It's the usual story: No one knows the identity of the couple or where they posed for this lovely formal portrait. Dating this photo is the easy part...
Read MoreWestern Pastimes: Billiards Buddies Follow-Up
In the May/June 2014 issue of Family Tree Magazine is a photo of six men standing with billiard cues. Two of the men are Charlotte Flock's maternal and paternal grandfathers. Instead of a formal portrait, Flock's ancestors posed during a pause in their favorite pastime. On the far left is...
Read MoreCostumed Old-Photo Mystery
Costumed ancestors in photographs often cause their descendants to wonder about the significance of that head-to-toe attire. Cheryl Jackson has one such mystery. She thinks this man is John Hardy Jackson who lived in the Paragould, Green County, area of Arkansas from approximately 1896 to 1942. He's part of a...
Read MoreTexas Photo Mysteries
This past weekend I was the featured speaker for the Austin Genealogical Society. There were a lot of folks in the audience who weren't familiar with this Photo Detective blog. The big question was: Have I written about any Texas photo mysteries? The answer is yes...
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