Old photos

[Orlaith17]

I have been sent several old photos of wedding groups by a relative in the US who has no idea who is in the photos. Her grandmother emigrated to the US from Scotland, and the pics were found among her treasured things when she died. What we do know is that the weddings were in Scotland, and the people were relatives of ours. But the pics were taken indoors, like a hall, so theres no building like a church to be identified. Can anyone suggest the best way to try to identify the people please? I would be willing to post them here or anywhere else online if there was an outside chance anyone may be able to help.I know its a long shot. Only clue I may be able to give is a family surname they are related to. Any advice greatly welcome thank you.

[Andrew C.]

It wouldn't do any harm to post them with some clues. Someone might recognise the hall and you could try and marry them up with weddings you knew happened in the family around the time they where taken.

[Hibee]

Hi

You might start by dating the photos. There are some experts at this art in here....

http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?board=298.0

Hibee

[Orlaith17]

Thanks for the link. I had a look there. I'm not sure if people will help to identify photos as it seems to be more about restoring them? The only clue I have about some of the photos I was sent is the general family name involved. I know the person in the US who sent them would love to know who the people were. I also have another photo, again sent from the same relation in the US, showing a young man, with his Christian name only. It was sent to a relative who had emigrated to the US from her godson. We have no idea who the young man in the photo, the godson, was, if he was a relative or what. He is wearing some sort of uniform. Maybe I could post it here and see if anyone can identify the uniform, so we can place his country at least?

[Hibee]

The section is Free Restoration AND Dating. There are experts in fashion who can pin a photo down to within a couple of years.

Hibee

[Currie]

Hello Orlaith,

Hoping that someone will recognise the individuals in a photograph posted on the internet would be a case of wishful thinking, however people win lotteries, and you never know your luck in a big city.

When I was trying to identify some of mine I photocopied each one onto a separate sheet of paper and used the rest of the space for notes, but that was B.C. (Before computers). I then sent a copy of all that stuff to relevant distant cousins to see what they thought.

There are probably whole books written on the subject of identifying photographs. There are plenty of websites that provide information, here's a couple.

http://www.squidoo.com/how-to-identify- ... hotographs
http://www.sheknows.com/living/articles ... irstyles-1

You could post the images on a photo hosting site such as PhotoBucket. That way you can provide links to anyone you wish to see them. Scan them at a sufficient resolution so that they fill up most of the screen when displayed. That could be around 200 dpi but maybe more. (For photo restoration and quality printing purposes you generally need higher resolutions than that.)

I'm sure there are plenty of people on the TalkingScot forum who would be only too happy to have a look-see and give their opinion.

All the best,
Alan

[Ann In the UK]

The people at that site are excellent at dating photo's just from the type and style of photo they are - some might say they're expert at it. It's certainly worth a shot - just to pin something down to within a couple of years might help. And people can get a lot of clues from even the most inane objects - a strip of wallpaper, a badge on a suit...whatever. Maybe someone will recognise the hall and be able to tell you its location. You really never know with these things!

[Orlaith17]

Code: Select all

http://mcs.open.ac.uk/mu123/page2.html

[Currie]

Hello Orlaith,

Appears to be an Open University quiz of some sort. Is that what you intended to post?

All the best,
Alan