3 Clues to Solve an Old Photo Mystery
When a family member won't talk about a person in a picture, it makes you wonder why. It also leaves you with an unidentified family photo. Dale Wheeler's father never spoke about the woman in this photo. Dale has three possible identities for this young woman: Julia Ann...
Read MoreThe Most Important Question To Ask Cousins About Old Photos
Way back in the 1990s, Roma Bennett's cousin gave her this photo. At the time her cousin told her she didn't know anything about this tintype. Hmmm. In my experience, people usually know something about a picture, but they don't know they know it until you ask the...
Read MoreFamily History Month: Focus on One Old Photo Collection
Thank you Darlene Sampley! I met Darlene last month in San Diego at an all-day seminar for the San Diego Genealogical Society. We started talking about her family photo collection and I started thinking about Family History Month, which genealogists traditionally observe in October. Hmm. Wouldn't it be...
Read MoreAdding Up the Clues in 3 Old Family Photos
Wanda Allison inherited photos of the McIntosh/Pearson families. Last week we looked at a tintype of this man, wearing Masonic regalia and posed with his wife. Relatives thought the couple could be John McIntosh (1810-1898) and Isabella Rutherford (1806-1894). The problem is the couple in this 1860s image is a...
Read MoreThree Clues that Identify an Old Photo
The clues add up differently in every photo. It's never just one thing that helps put a name with a face. In Pat Eiler's tintype the three clues are age, fashion and another picture. There is no mystery as to the identity of these three people. Pat knows they are...
Read MoreAn Identification True or False
Since I'm packing for the FGS conference in San Antonio, I thought I'd select a image from Texas for this week's old photo mystery. Suzanne Wood owns two mystery photos. An elderly uncle identified this pictures as Elenor South (1839-1924), but Suzanne isn't sure if she trusts his memory. Could...
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Clues, Cousins and Contacts: Three Ways to Solve a Photo Mystery
What does it take to solve a picture mystery? In this case it's clues, cousins and contacts. June Thomazin is determined to solve this tintype mystery! I featured it in my Photo Detective column in the September 2010 Family Tree Magazine (you can get a download of that Photo Detective...
Read MoreWhich Mother is It?
This lovely image depicts either someone's mother or stepmother. The question is, which one? It's a north-of-the-border mystery.Chris Rye inherited this photo from his grandfather, who in turn inherited it from his mother. The back of this tintype reads "Enos Mother." Enos Storm is Rye's great-great-great grandfather.&...
Read MoreA Double Mystery
This week I'm researching a very interesting family photo of two men clowning for the camera. Sandy Forest showed me this image at an event over the weekend and I couldn't stop thinking about it. She's pretty sure about the identity of the man on the left, but the man...
Read MoreHand-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...
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