What Does It Take to Solve a Mystery?
Bet you're thinking this is a good question. Solving an old photo mystery relies on different things. It all depends on the picture but there are certain family facts that help. Denise Valentine submitted this 20th-century picture. She's unsure who's in the picture but she has some ideas. I...
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Foolin’ with the Past in Old Photos
At historical sites around the country, it's not unusual to see men and women dressed in fashions of the past. The same is true for parades and town anniversary celebrations. If you have a photo of a relative in historical garb, it can make you do a...
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Proud Mamas in Old Photos: Finding the Clues
What's the first thing you see when you look at this picture? My eye immediately gravitates to the woman and her slight smile. She's one proud Mama seated with her two children and her husband. Your eye might be drawn to the wicker chairs...
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Facebook and Family Photographs
I'm always looking for more family photos, trying to fill in the pictorial blanks in my family tree. There are a LOT of people in my genealogy that fall into that "blank" category. Searching for "new" family pictures means asking distant relatives and trolling the internet. There'ss one very popular...
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Three Techniques for Solving a Military Mystery
You know the expression, "There's something about a man in uniform." Well I can finish that phrase with "that's so mysterious." One of the most difficult photo mysteries to solve is a person in a uniform. There are a few reasons why that's true. First there were...
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Double-Checking Photo Clues to Solve a Mystery
James Dinan and his wife solved their photo mystery using the resources of the Photo Detective blog archive. You can access it using the navigation on the left. Here's the photo they submitted:It's a group of men gathered for an outing. They call themselves The Fatal Nine Spot, and the...
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5 Clues to Solve an Old-Photo Mystery
Every old mystery photo is full of clues if you know where to look. Let's break this one down into five steps: 1. Consider the provenance.Phyllis Reakes' first cousin gave her this photograph. Phyllis knows the man sitting on the far right is her great-grandfather, born in 1839. That...
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Old Mystery-Photo Success Story: Six Years Later
So how long does it take to identify an old mystery photo? Sometimes it happens quickly, sometimes not. It all depends on how many facts you have about a photo and if you can rule out possible subjects. In Michael Boyce's case, it took six years. He's determined to bring...
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Identifying Mystery Photos in an Old Family Album
A family photo album opens the door to new genealogy discoveries, but reading the clues in an album isn't always easy. It often comes down to what you know about your family and who's depicted on each album page. The most important people to the person who laid out the...
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Twentieth-Century Childhood Fashion
Kyndahl Carlson's aunt is writing down all the family stories she can remember. A family photo album in a cousin's collection may contain key details to add to those tales. The album may have belonged to the cousin's grandmother, Ruth Scrivner Laughter. The photos are laid out with the elders...
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