Does this photo show my father’s lost family?

Q

Could you help me date this photograph? My father (born 1912) was fostered, and died when I was young. I know little about his ancestors, but believe that his parents came from Ireland. I have a DNA match to a lady whose late grandmother was born in Belfast in 1909, and emigrated to Australia in 1930. Like my father, her mother was called Ellen Gray. This photograph and others were among her things. Lesley Cowing

A

This is an amateur snapshot taken in the open air using a household camera. The suburban or semi-rural setting, beyond a residential area, could be a family garden or smallholding on the edge of town. I can’t positively identify the geographical location from this image, but I don’t believe that it resembles Australia.

The lady’s simply styled knee-length frock, short bobbed hair, bead necklace and bar shoes together typify the modes of c1925–1930. Similarly, the young child’s knitted outfit was fashionable broadly between the early 1920s and the early 1930s. The lady’s age seems slightly indeterminate: if she’s in her early 20s, then she could just possibly be your contact’s grandmother (born 1909 in Belfast), pictured here c1929/1930 with a juvenile relative before she emigrated to Australia in 1930.

Either way, the date of this scene strongly suggests an Irish location, so if this doesn’t represent the grandmother herself before departure, it is probably a photographic souvenir of family left behind, perhaps her mother Ellen Gray. Analysing all of the photographs in the set together should prove useful.

Jayne Shrimpton

1 OCCASION

Despite the domestic outdoor setting, the lady is dressed smartly in a good lace-collared dress and beads, as if she were marking a special occasion, or this was an important photograph.

2 BACKGROUND AND BUILDINGS

The landscape and background buildings are not immediately recognisable, but they appear more Irish/British than Australian. Can any

Who Do You Think You Are? Magazine readers identify the location?

3 INFANT CLOTHING

Male and female infants dressed alike in the past and this child’s jersey and shorts, ankle socks and bar shoes could be male or female, although the cloche-style hat suggests a girl.

4 CHILD’S AGE

Infants are key to understanding unmarked photographs, their ages easily estimated. This girl is aged about three to four years, so was an ancestor born firmly in the 1920s.

5 SKIRT LENGTH

Hemlines are crucial in determining the dates of individual 1920s/1930s photographs. Dress hems set on, or just slightly below, the knee as here always indicate a year of at least 1925.