Who is in the picture? When was it taken?
When you inherit a lot of pictures, you are often missing information about a picture or 200. Sometimes, you find information written on the photo, or in the album it is in. It may be fairly complete – with date, place, and people. It may be only one of these pieces of information, it may be none. Sometimes, people are identified with nicknames or middle names.
As we were going through some pictures, we found a couple of pictures from the summer of 1970, showing a statue across a river. In one, Georgie and Walt are sitting on the guardrail with the statue behind them.
We did some research, and we think we have figured out where this picture was taken. We matched it to a spot along highway 2 near Oregon, Illinois. The statue is Chief Black Hawk in Lowden State Park, across the Rock River. What do you think?
This brought up the question of what do you do with a picture with no information?
We spent a lot of time with Georgie going through her pictures and taking notes. There were pictures where she had no information, and there were more pictures than we had time to get though.
I wasn’t as lucky with Grandma Kellogg’s photos. By the time I got them, she wasn’t able to see well enough nor was her memory such that she could tell me about many of the older pictures that she had.
Helpful tips for researching pictures
The first step is to try to see what information you have. Are there other pictures with the same people in them? Do they have any identifying information on them? Is the background identifiable? Sometimes, you can find a picture with some of the same people at a different event such as a wedding and might be able to get more information that way.
Next, try to see if anyone else in the family can identify the people, places, or time the picture was taken. We visited Aunt Fran and went through some of the pictures we had scanned in and she was able to help on several of them.
Another possible source of information is local newspapers or historical society. Many local papers published visits, such as when family had traveled from overseas to visit the family who had emigrated to America. You may not be able to completely identify everyone in a picture but may be able to determine which family they belong to.
We also wondered about using modern technology. Is facial recognition software to the point that it could tell you who someone is by comparison of old photographs? I don’t know if that is possible, but it may be another resource.
Sometimes you can identify a location through an image search on the internet. Buildings are often easier to find than people.
The most difficult question
What do you do if you have exhausted all of your resources and still have no idea who is in the picture and when or where it was taken? Do you continue to hold onto the picture for future generations to continue to wonder? Do you give it to a historical society with no identifying information? If so, which society do you give it to? Do you dispose of it or donate it?
What do you think is the right answer? We would love to hear your opinions.
Information about Lowden State Park can be found here.
I found some information about working with unidentified images in this article by Beth Eaglescliffe and this blog post by Lisa Lisson.
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