First things first, do not make more work for yourself than necessary. Before you begin to analyze and hypothesize about your family photos be sure to ask your family about them. Does anyone recognize the subjects or locations in the photos? Any leads for you to work from? Any identified photos to compare yours with?

Create a list of ownership. Which side of the family did these photos come from? Exactly who in the family did they belong to? Try to trace ownership as specifically as possible back as far as you or your relatives know. Every person who owned the photos may have added to them not only with their immediate family photos, but also with those of their in-laws and friends.

After you have interviewed your relatives and determined approximately what families you may be looking at, you can begin to look for clues on and in the photos themselves.

Does the photo have a photographer stamp? The photographer stamp usually reveals the location at which the photo was taken – did you have family living in that town? There is always the possibility that your relatives had photos taken while they were traveling or visiting other relatives, so don’t rule that out either. Photographer stamps can also be used to date a photo based on the design, the number of lines printed and whether the photographer stamp is on the front or back of the photo.

Is there anything familiar in the content of the photo? A family home, a Masonic sash, a military uniform? Any of these clues could narrow down the possibilities of who you are looking at.

In Part I (June 2005 issue) photographs were discussed by type and timeframe to help you determine what you may have in your collection – daguerreotypes, ambrotypes, tintypes, carte-de-visites (CDVs), cabinet cards. This list is not the limit of possibilities, but covers some of the most likely candidates. If you can classify your photos into these categories you are already on your way to dating your photos.

Determining a possible timeframe for a photograph is a very useful step toward identifying the subjects pictured. If you know a photo was taken from 1870-1875, for instance, then you can thin down the possibilities in your family tree to people living at that time. You can judge by the age of the subjects in your photograph that a young woman in 1875 was probably born in the 1850s, or an old man in 1875 was probably born around the turn of the century. Such clues will considerably shorten your list of potential subjects.

Specific physical characteristic clues for dating photos are too numerous to list here, but can be found in a number of books and web sites on this subject. If you are interested I recommend seeking these out, see the Further Reading list below for ideas. I am always amazed at the volume of clues provided and how easy it can be to truly date a photo to a small window of time.

A few examples of the type of specific clues you will find:

• Cartes-de-Visites with double-lined borders were common 1861-1869.
• Photos were taxed: Aug. 1, 1864 - Aug. 1, 1866. During this time a stamp was placed on the back of the photo and is easily distinguished. The cost of the stamp can narrow the photo date even further.
• Tintypes with black backs generally date to the 1860s; those with brown backs generally date to the 1870s or later.

Dating clues apply to fashions, props and even poses as well.

There are currently two free genealogy web sites that are archiving and sharing old Greene County, PA photos. See www.familyoldphotos.com/pa/greene/index.htm and www.greeneconnections.com to compare and/or share your photos. Identified photos on these sites may help you to learn about your unidentified photos.

Further Reading:

Uncovering Your Ancestry through Family Photographs, by Maureen Taylor (she has just released an updated version in 2005). See www.familytreemagazine.com for this and similar titles, plus a regular online column by this photo expert. She takes photo query submissions so if you have a real mystery write to her and maybe she will feature your photo in her next column!

Dating Old Photographs 1840-1929 and More Dating Old Photographs, both by Family Chronicle Magazine. See www.familychronicle.com for details. These books are full of dated photos you can use to visually compare with your pictures.

Classy Image – Tips for Dating Old Photographs (web site):
See www.classyimage.com/dating.htm for more photo types and specific dating information.