How to Date Old Family Photographs

Great-Grandma's family collection of antique pictures can be a treasure trove for you, the genealogy researcher. Especially if you can establish when an antique picture was taken.

Dating a photograph can help you identify the subject(s) (in early photography the subjects were often referred to as "sitters") and can provide additional information as you piece together your family tree.

There are some basic techniques to begin the process of dating an antique picture.  You can start by determining the answers to the following questions:

• What is the print made of?  Is the image printed on metal, glass, card stock or paper?  Daguerreotype (early tintypes) and ambrotypes (printed on glass) were often mounted in double wooden frames that opened like a book. These were the most common types of early photographs and date back to around 1839.  By 1870, almo st all antique pictures were printed on heavy paper or card stock.  The heavier stock was much more common in early photographs; by the 1930s even studio portraits were printed on thin paper.
  
• Is the antique picture printed in black and white or color?  Some images were being hand-tinted as early as the 1850s.  Although color still photography was introduced in 1906, it was an expensive process that only professionals could afford.  Color antique pictures did not become common for home use until the late 1950s / early 1960s.
  
• How are the people in the photograph posed?  Very early antique pictures showed people in rigid poses and usually without smiles, partly because exposure times could be as long as twenty seconds.  Many portrait photographers even used braces to help sitters stay in position during the process.  Candid pictures and snapshots became more common in the 1920s.
  
• How are the sitters dressed?  The straight tunic dresses and bobbed hair of the 1920s are easy to distinguish from the cinched waists and luxuriant chignons of the late 1890s.
  
• What other objects are visible in the antique picture?  A Model T car is absolute proof that the picture was not taken before 1908. Furniture, toys, brands names, logos - all these things can provide clues and thus invaluable assistance in identifying previously unidentified photographs.

Additional information on dating family antique pictures is available from this list of links.

Tracing a family resemblance through the generations using antique pictures can give you a warm sense of connection to your family's past. OneGreatFamily.com can also help you trace your find lost ancestors, even while you sleep. To learn more, click here.

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Ontario and Nova Scotia Settlers, 1790-1860

Early settlers of Nova Scotia and Ontario included American colonists (particularly Loyalists) as well as English, Scottish, and Irish immigrants. Among the six titles reproduced here, you'll find historical essays on the settlement of Nova Scotia and Ontario, Loyalist lists, population returns, maps, and immigration records. Originally published by the Genealogical Publishing Company, these books reference approximately 131,000 individuals.

The scarcity of surviving civil records from Nova Scotia and Ontario makes those found on this database even more valuable. Among the unusual resources collected here you'll find a comprehensive collection of newspaper columns that focus entirely on New England families of English descent who settled in Nova Scotia around the time of the Revolutionary War... Read More

Passenger and Immigration Lists: New York, 1820-1850

Passenger lists are important primary sources of arrival data for the vast majority of immigrants to the United States in the nineteenth century. In the mid-1800s, immigrants (particularly Irish, Germans, and Italians) flocked to the port of New York. Indexed and easy to search, this database references approximately 1.6 million individuals who arrived in New York between January 7, 1820 and December 31, 1850.

The information collected for this database was taken from the National Archives Microfilm Series M237, rolls 1 through 95 (Registers of Vessels Arriving at the Port of New York from Foreign Ports, 1789-1919). While the volumes vary in dates covered and information recorded, the information you can obtain from this database can help you create a well-rounded picture of your ancestor's arrival in America.

Partly in an effort to alleviate overcrowding of passenger ships, Congress enacted legislation (3 Stat. 489) on March 2, 1819 to regulate the transport of passengers in ships arriving from foreign ports. As a provision of this act, masters of such ships were required to submit a list of all passengers to the collector of customs in the district in which the ship arrived. The legislation also provided that the collector of customs submit quarterly passenger list reports to the Secretary of State, who was, in turn, required to submit the information to Congress. The information was then published in the form of Congressional documents. These passenger lists are important primary sources of arrival data for the vast majority of immigrants to the United States in the nineteenth century.

A further Congressional act passed on May 7, 1874 repealed the legislative provision requiring collectors to send copies of passenger lists to the Secretary of State. Thereafter, collectors of customs were to send only statistical reports on passenger arrivals to the Department of Treasury.

• Request a Free Lookup From This Database.

Census Records: United Kingdom, 1851

A census is an official enumeration of the population in a particular area. In addition to counting the inhabitants of an area, the census generally collects other vital information. Since 1801, the United Kingdom has undertaken a census every ten years (except for 1941, during World War II).

Useful enumerations featuring the names of every resident of England and Wales began in 1841, and by 1851 the census schedule showed each person's full name, age, gender, occupation, address, relationship to the head of the household, marital status, and the exact town or parish of birth.

More than an index to the census, this database includes all of the information you'd find on the actual census page. Knowing the exact town or parish of a person's birth can be especially helpful in tracking a person's mobility and in locating the proper entries in civil registration records or parish registers...

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Today's Free Collection: "California Marriage Index, 1960–1985"

Search details from more than 4.8 million marriages performed in California from 1960–1985 to find bride and groom names, the county where they were married and more...

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Today's Free Collection: "Ireland, Griffith’s Valuation, 1848–1864"

Find out if your ancestors were among the million-plus individuals who occupied property in Ireland between 1848 and 1864, a time from which no Irish census survived...

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Search our FREE 15th anniversary collections.

You’re invited to a 15-day celebration of your story—and ours. In fact, we’re giving you FREE access to one of our favorite collections each day for 15 days. Come back daily through October 15^th to search free collections and to enter our 15 Days of Discovery Sweepstakes.

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