Grow Your Family Tree
If you can’t put a name to a face, follow Nick Peers’ advice to help you…
Identify unknown people in photos
Very little in genealogy can beat the thrill of uncovering a cache of old family photos. These more than anything else help connect us to our ancestors, but while you may find familiar relatives lurking in them, you’re also likely to come across people you struggle to identify. In this issue’s column, we’ll examine some tips to help you put names to faces.
Look for clues in the photo
When you see a photo of someone you don’t recognise, turn it over to see if there’s any writing on the back – diligent ancestors may have recorded names, dates and places. Next, ask around your family – particularly older members – who should be able to fill in some of the gaps. If you received the photos from another researcher online, don’t forget to ask them – it’s likely unknown faces will be more familiar to a distant relative than a close one.
If that doesn’t help, look for clues to where or when the photo was taken. In the photo above right, the name of the photographer (John Fergus) and location (Largs) gave me enough clues to research online the studio it was taken in. This narrowed the date to the last decade of the 19th century. At the time only one branch of my family tree was in Scotland, which helped me identify the man as railway navvy – and great-greatgrandfather – Daniel Hirons.
If the person is part of a group shot, you may be able to glean clues from the other people. For example, in an extended family photo where a rarely seen uncle or aunt appears, could the unknown face be related to them somehow? Perhaps the opposite is true: a photo of four young folk, one of whom is your grandparent, might indicate the others are cousins. Check their gender and approximate ages against suitable candidates in your family tree to see if they’re a fit.
Try a reverse-image search
If all else fails, a final long shot worth trying is a reverse-image search on Google. Go to https://images.google.co.uk and click the camera icon. Select ‘Upload an image’ and click Browse to select a high-resolution version of a photo containing an unknown person or place.
After uploading, you’ll have one of two results: if you’re incredibly lucky, another copy of the photo might have been uploaded by someone else – click it for a potential lead. If not, scroll down and click ‘Visually similar images’ for clues from similar photos.
In our experience, this approach is more likely to identify an unknown landmark in the background of an old family photo. In the screenshot above for instance, Google suggested Mesopotamia as a match for a photo in a postcard my great-grandfather brought back from the Middle Eastern front after World War I.