* when examining family pictures, take time to smell the roses...

Spend a few extra minutes examining your family pictures. Look closer at the background details (location, buildings, furniture, etc). You might discover new details leading you to solve a mystery or better understand the significance of a picture. In the case of this flowery picture, it was a mystery! A label on the back gave me some clues, but for the longest time I couldn't make a connection with anyone in my tree. The back of the picture tells me this is Alice and Frank Robinson, they lived in Livingston NJ, and they were cousins of my great grandfather Wentworth Middleton. After months away from looking at this picture I randomly realized I had all of the information right in front of me!

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* finding a death record gives new meaning to my birthday

Birthdays have always been a big deal to me. "I'm the birthday girl" worked wonders during the few days surrounding the anniversary of my birth. This self centered view of "my day" was forever changed when I learned I was born on the day my gggg grandmother died in 1853. That's right- today is my birthday! Thanks for all the wonderful birthday wishes- who ordered the delightful afternoon sunshine after the rain?? Thank youuu! My gggg grandmother Harriett Potts Wright died on April 28, 1853 in Bordentown, Burlington County, New Jersey. I was born April 28! What are the chances....

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* ancestry.com webinar: finding your irish ancestors

Do you have Irish Ancestors? Want to learn more? In honor of St. Patrick's Day, Ancestry.com hosted a free webinar "Finding your Irish Ancestors in America and Ireland". I have quite a few Irish ancestors and I've been looking forward to this webinar. What I learned from the webinar....

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* trying to identify mystery family pictures

After going through all of my old family pictures, I organized them by family and was left with a pile of unknown mystery pictures. These pictures have no labels or snippets of information. It was easy to put them into the back of my photo album and focus my time on scanning and attaching the known faces to a name. After working with the labeled pictures I had more information and clues to help me when examining the mystery pictures. These pictures have been passed down by many generations and my thoughtful ancestors added whatever information they had about the picture's location or their own personal relationship to the individual. ANY clues are a luck find, but it can be very frustrating when can't identify unknown faces! I'd love the opportunity to share a picture of someones ancestor with them!

5 mystery pictures...

Mystery Photo #1. "Santa Rosa"

On the back of this picture it simply says "Santa Rosa", what does that mean????? I know this is a Shaw Family portrait with my great great grandmother Ann, great grandmother Edith, and my grandmother Marjorie. A few of the others I am able to identify from other labeled Shaw pictures, but most are just guesses or completely unknown. The only clues in this picture are the ages of Ann and Marjorie, Ann died in 1939 and Marjorie was born in 1917. That tells me the picture was taken on or before 1939 and from the looks of Marjorie she is about 15-20? So I am guessing this picture was taken sometime between 1932-1939.

Mystery Photo #2. Woman and baby Tintype

This mystery may never be solved, I think it's likely that this could be one of the few, if not the only, picture of this woman. I believe this picture is a tintype and from what I've read the usage of Tintype photography spans the years of 1856-1900ish. I have a few daguerreotypes from the Franks family, maybe this is a Franks woman? Any suggestions on how to find out who this is?

Mystery Picture #3- Shaw Women

Again I know this is the Shaw Family and the 3 women in the front row: (from right) Marjorie, Edith, and Ann. No description or markings on the back! To me they look a LITTLE bit older than mystery picture #1, so maybe it was taken 1933-1939?

Mystery Picture #4. Co L 3rd Infantry , 1st Sgt. Lester D. May...?

This picture is from one of the first pages of an old black construction paper photo album. After looking through the album MANY times I have linked similar jewelry and settings with other labeled Shaw pictures, so I am lead to believe there are Shaw women in this album, but for most part I have NO IDEA who the individuals are. This album will soon have it's own post!

I was able to  remove the picture from the paper (VERY VERY GENTLY, I don't recommend!) and realized there was writing on the back!

1st Sgt. Lester D. May...

Co L 3rd Inf. C.A.

Greenwich, Conn

Any ideas what year this picture might be from??

Mystery Picture #5. Postcard to my Great Grandmother Mary Nolen from Lula?

7 July 1908, Rochester, NY- "This is one Ray took of me at Palmers Glen. I will send you more as soon as.."

..."he gets them done. Hope you are feeling well these hot days. Ans soon. Yours, Lula."

I don't know who Lula is! I don't have any leads to Rochester or anyone named Lula...The date of the postcard and the usage of my great grandmothers maiden name give me some sort of time line as to when Mary married my great grandfather. I don't know when they married but Mary Nolen would have been about 20 when she got this postcard in 1908 and she had their first child abt 1914, so they were most likely married between July 1908-1914. But I'm still on the lookout for Lula and Ray....

The message here: don't let mystery pictures slip through the cracks! There are many different types of clues you can get from pictures that will help you identify pictures and create a time line of your ancestors life. I've never tried any face recognition software...should that be a next step??

Clues to look for in pictures: clothing, jewelry, furniture, backgrounds, location, labels, markings from the photo processor, photographer name/location, shape, size, paper type, and photography type...to list a few!

How have you identified pictures? Do you have unknown family pictures in your albums? Are they hanging on your wall? I'd love to hear your stories!