Earlier this week I was showing a co-worker several pictures of my family that had been posted on Ancestry.com and it was amazing some of the details that could be found in those photos. A great many genealogical clues can be found within a photo.
You maybe able to narrow down when a photo was taken just by the clothing the subjects wore or by other details. Any public library will have books on clothing in different time periods, these books can be great resources for identifying the time period of a photo. In the case of one photo of my grandfather and his family, he and both his brothers are wearing a small pin on their lapel. While I can’t prove that the pin in their ruptured duck, I highly suspect it due to the time period of the photo.
Also look at the background details, is there snow on the ground or are the trees full of leaves? These details can tell the season a photo was taken and may help narrow down where an ancestor was during a particular period of time. Is there a car in the background of the photo or is there a horse and buggy? If there is a car what make and model is the car? Cars can be great indicators of when a photo was taken.
Not only can photos show when a photo was taken, but where the photo was taken. Look for signs and other identifying landmarks that can place the photo. Did your ancestors move and can a photo narrow down where they moved from or to?
Of course the most obvious way to see when a photo was taken is to look at the type of photo, was it a tin type, a black and white, a color, or a Polaroid?
In my preparation to write this blog I discovered a great book in my library that goes into much more detail than I did here: Family photo detective : learn how to find genealogy clues in old photos and solve family photo mysteries by Maureen A. Taylor. I highly recommend if you have an interest in photography as part of your genealogical research.
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