Tag: photo-sleuthing

Victorian photograph albums were, in the main, the preserve of women.

When album owners put together their photograph collection, they frequently concluded that their audience was familiar with the people in the pictures. Annotation was kept for friends and relatives abroad, with whom the family might be unfamiliar.

The album was an unassuming green cloth-bound book picked up at an antique fair. I should never have bought it since, at first sight, there were no clues to the previous owner’s identity. But the photos were wonderful – a clearly wealthy Edwardian family, shown posing in sunny gardens, elegant domestic interiors and in front […]

“To Miss E McLymont from her affectionate friend Jessie Malcolm March 26 1863” Cartes de visite were introduced into Britain in 1857 and rapidly became a national craze. People collected portraits of royalty, politicians, friends and family, and mounted them in photograph albums. This collection, presented by Jessie Malcolm to her friend Elizabeth McClymont, is […]

With a little practice, the family historian can become adept at ‘reading’ old photos and may even be able to identify previously unidentified ancestors in the family album.