Spotting Light-Eyed Ancestors in Old Family Photos
Paul Newman, Frank Sinatra, Cameron Diaz, Daniel Craig and other Hollywood actors and actresses draw attention with their variously shaded blue eyes. Eye color is easy to spot in contemporary color pictures, but how can you tell if you inherited your baby blues from your maternal or paternal great-grandparent? The...
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Finding Your Ancestors’ Graduation Photos
This time of year makes me think about graduations. I live near two universities and often see graduates in cap and gowns smiling for pictures. Our ancestors also posed for school pictures, whether they were graduating from eighth grade, a trade school, high school or a college/university. In the mid-19th...
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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...
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A Memorial Day Tribute
Today we equate Memorial Day with the start of summer, but it's important to recognize it as a somber occasion as well. A few years ago I wrote about the roots of the holiday in Decoration Day 1868.This stereograph from the Library of Congress shows the first Decoration...
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A Click Away: Eight Years of Photo Identification Clues
Every week I sit down to write a new blog post about picture mysteries. On this blog that archive goes back eight years. That's a lot of photo clues and picture facts! It's easy to use this blog as a free resource. Here's how...
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Old Photo Mysteries and Genetics
At the recent New England Regional Genealogical Conference (NERGC) I met Pat McHugh. She told me about a very interesting image in her family collection. The name of the couple is currently unknown. Their clothing and the studio setting suggests it was taken in the late...
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Wavy Hair in Old Photos: Spot the Right Decade
The next time you curl your hair, think about the success of 19th-century hairdresser Marcel Grateau. In 1872, he turned hair tongs upside down when styling a stage star's hair, and created a trend that remained popular for more than 50 years!Last week I discussed Jim DeVogt's funeral card...
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Photo Clues in 19th-Century Funeral Cards
Funeral cards are nothing new. In the 1860s, mourning cards were popular after the assassination of President Lincoln, but not to announce the death of an average person. By the 1880s, though, it was fashionable to print cards to memorialize relatives. This funeral card dates from 1891 and is printed...
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Labeling 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...
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Finding Gold in Old Family Photos
Family photos can depict a single individual or a large group. While we think of them in terms of our family history, large group portraits might be important to other families as well. Take this photo of a group in Shaws Flats, Calif. Shaws Flats was a Gold Rush town...
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