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They confirm my hypothesis about boys and hair. It appears that in the early 20th century, there was a trend—little boys with long hair and hair bows. They look just like their sisters. What’s a genealogist to do to tell them apart?
Family traditions, oral histories and good old-fashioned genealogical research are the only ways to tell the boys from the girls in these cases. Don’t jump to conclusions when you see a bow in this period—you might be wrong. Add up the kids in the family, ask older relatives if they know who’s who, and try to match up their ages to kids in the photo using census returns and other documents.
Here’s an image Esther Thompson sent me:
Her emails says it all “This is a picture of my great-grandparents William and Ida Johnson, and the boy in the front with the curls (and bow in his hair) is my grandfather Andrew Clyde Johnson, born in 1897. I got this picture from my Dad’s sister and when I asked her who the little girl was, she said, ‘that little girl is your grandfather.’ I couldn’t believe it.”
Here’s a close-up. Enjoy!
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