Photos of babies can be some of the most difficult images to identify. Parents with multiple children can sometimes have difficulty telling which picture is which child. When decades have passed and the child in the photograph is likely deceased, identification can be more difficult. In some individuals facial features change from infancy to adulthood and someone who only knew the person as a grownup may have no idea what that person looked like as an infant.
Ways to help identify such photographs include:
- Retaining any organizational structure of pictures. If the photographs are grouped, take group pictures of the photographs as a way of preserving the organizational structure.
- Organizational structure includes: albums, envelopes, boxes, etc. Albums are not the only way photographs can be organized.
- Any organizational method can contain the occasional photograph from a completely different, unrelated family.
- Look for any clues in the picture that could suggest a time frame or a location.
- Do not crop any of the photograph.
- Compare to known infant photographs of the same era.
One response
I was able to identify a photo of my father as a baby because a cousin had the same photo in an album he had inherited from his mother who was my grandmother’s sister. My mother had initially identified the photo as my grandfather, but my cousin thought it unlikely that his mother would have a baby picture of her brother-in-law. I’m quite sure my mother mis-labeled this because the baby was dressed in what was obviously a christening gown, & my mother didn’t grow up in a religion where christening was accepted. My father did though & there was quite a lot of controversy when I was born & my father’s family thought I should be christened. My mother won the day in that disagreement, & I was not christened.