Mark Rollins  says:
2 years ago

This is why my wife spends a lot of time scrapbooking.

Debbie Cook  says:
2 years ago

My mother-in-law is the historian in our family. I am amazed at how she remembers so much about so many people. Digital pictures are often not renamed once downloaded. At least they can be date identified - but we still need to take the time to give those photos somekind of identifiying names. Thank goodness for folders!

Chuck  says:
2 years ago

Bobmnu - thanks for visiting my Hub and for your comment.

As to advice, first, as the article pointed out, check with other relatives, friends, etc. who may also have knowledge. These people don't necessarily have to be contemporaries of those in the photo. Instead they may have other old pictures of some of the same people and the people in those photos may be identified on those photos. They may also be able to tell you who these people are NOT thereby limiting the possibilities as to who they ARE.

The web can also be of help. Geneology (family history) ranks right up with pornography and religion in terms of having the greatest number of individual websites. In addition to numerous commercial and non-profit sites that host family histories there are also many individual sites all of which have pictures as well as letters and other information. There are also sites where you can ask for help from other people who may have information you are looking for. It wouldn't hurt to post a few of the pictures you are trying to identify on the help sections of some of these sites and ask if anyone can identify the people in the photo(s)

Also, look for anything written on the photo that might explain its origin. For instance, the the first photo that appears at the top of this Hub shows six people - two middle age adults, three young adults and one teenager. On the back of the photo was written "Reveno, PA" and the photo came from the home of my great-aunt Abbie who had continued to live at home and support her parents as an adult and who had inherited and kept their home after their deaths. She was my Mother's aunt and thus from the Corbett side of the family. The woman in the lower right corner bears a very close resemblence to pictures of my Aunt Abbie's mother (my great-grandmother). The gentleman next to her appears in other pictures with her taken at when she looked to be the same age as she is in the picture and he also has the same build as other pictures of my great-grandfather as an old man so it is easy to conclude that this man is my great-grandfather. I also know from what I heard in my youth from my Aunt Abbie and my mother, that my great-grandparents had 4 children - Robert, Abbie, Charles (my grandfather) and Harvey these facts are also documented in a one page biography of my great-grandfather found in an old book entitled History of Rochester and Monroe County N.Y. From Earliest Historic Times to the Beginning of 1907 and which I have transcribed and published on a RootsWeb page at: http://www.pa-roots.org/data/read.php?1110,410568 . From this I am able to deduce that the young woman is my great-aunt Abbie, the teenager on her left (upper right of the picture) her youngest brother, Harvey, and the other two (top and bottom left of the photo) her older brother Robert and my grandfather, Charles. I haven't yet been able to determine which of the two is my grandfather but am leaning toward the one in the lower left. Old letters, which I also have, confirm that the family, while they spent most of their lives in Rochester, New York, came from Pennsylvania and not only maintained close contact with the family back in Pennsylvania (some of whom lived in Reveno) through frequent letters but also traveled back there periodically (and the family there visited Rochester as well). So this is like a detective trying to solve a mystery and it can be fun as well as rewarding.

Thanks again for visiting and commenting. Chuck