Learning how to date old photographs
July 14, 2007
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Last month, Randy over at Genea-Musings found this wonderful photographic treasure in his Aunt Geraldine’s papers. He asked for input from readers to help date this pair of cased photographs. Randy’s post contains some great resources to help you date old photographs, so be sure to stop by. It’s nice to have resources pooled together like that. Thanks, Randy!
Dating old photographs is a very effective way to help identify who is in the photo. If you can narrow it down to a decade and you know your family tree, it’s much easier to figure out who is pictured in an unmarked photograph.
Here are two great books that will help you date your photographic treasures.
Uncovering Your Ancestry through Family Photographs
by Maureen Taylor, The Photo Detective
As far as I’m concerned, Maureen Taylor is the Supreme Maven of Photo Dating. Lucky for us, she shares her expertise in easy to understand books written with genealogists in mind. This updated version of one of her classics is a must-have for every family archivist.
But you don’t have to take my word for it. Every single rating on Amazon.com is 5 out of 5. Here’s the first review, click here to read them all.
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A beautiful and useful book, January 5, 2001 | By | Mark Howells (Puyallup, Washington State, USA) – See all my reviews |
This book is an outstanding way to expand your family history skills through photo research. It provides step-by-step advice on how to identify ancestors in photos using their poses, clothes, studio props, and other information.
After giving a history of photography with emphasis on identifying types of photographs by era, the author provides chapters such as “Looking for Clues”, “Identifying Costume”, and the very important “Identifying the Photographer”. The book also gives detailed information on how to build your own family photograph collection including the use of photograph worksheets and proper labeling.
The photographs used to illustrate the book are simply glorious. It is a visual treat to follow the pictorial examples given to explain the text. Each photo is an exquisite specimen of how our ancestors faced the camera.
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Oh, and don’t forget to visit Maureen’s Photo Detective blog.
Dressed for the Photographer
By Joan Severa
If you’re serious about dating photographs, there’s another book that will make your task much easier. You don’t need this book if you have an encyclopedic knowledge of the history of costume. What’s that? You don’t have an encyclopedic knowledge of the history of costume? Yeah, me neither…and I sourced historic photos for over six years. It takes a long time to build that expertise.
Once again, family historians are fortunate that an expert has shared her knowledge with the rest of us. Joan Severa is a former costume curator at the Wisconsin Historical Society.
Joan’s book, Dressed for the Photographer, is PACKED with example photographs and arranged chronologically. The images are large enough for you to see the detail, and the book is printed on high quality paper (that’s why it’s so pricey). Joan points out all the hallmarks to look for when dating a photograph, including clothing, jewelry and hairstyles. She also does a fantastic job including photographs of regular working people, not just the wealthy. Amazing book. Nothing else like it out there.
[Photo Credit: Randy Seaver, Genea-Musings blog]
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Other articles you might enjoy:
5 tips for preserving your one-of-a-kind family photographs
Where should I store my family photographs?
What to keep? What to toss?
Flash drives are NOT for long term storage
Why do archivists wear white gloves?
Comments
5 Responses to “Learning how to date old photographs”
For dating British photographs this site is invaluable:
http://www.cartes.freeuk.com/time/date.htm
It has a wide range of dated photographs that you can compare to your own undated ones.
Sally, congratulations on receiving the Family Tree Magazine awared. Well deserved indeed. And thanks for all of the tips and information you provide.
Andrew: Thanks for sharing your great tip. I put the link in a new post so more folks will see it.
Becky: Thanks for the kudos. It was a wonderful surprise and an honor to be recognized by Family Tree Magazine.
This is great. You really did a good job thanks.
Josly, happy to help!