In August, I dedicated all my podcast episodes to family reunion focused activities and guests. Since it’s Family Reunion season, that means we’re pretty likely to be posing for a group portrait. It’s part of most reunions...a visual gathering of everyone at the event. We have dozens of pictures of my husband’s family reunion attendees

In Episode 51, Edith Wagner of Reunions magazine shared a story about a reunion photo where they use flat bed trucks to help with the layout. A recent news story shared the tale of one reunion of 60 people who were going to reenact a family reunion photo from the 1890s.

Perhaps you’re part of a reunion gathering for everyone of a particular surname. Perhaps it’s an event that’s taken place for decades if not a century and there are group portraits of those.

I bet very few of them contain the names of the people in the image. There is a simple reason. If you know the names of everyone in the picture, you’re less likely to write identifications on them. The problem with that reasoning is that as time passes, so do the people who knew who was in the photo. Now the next generation has a photo mystery to solve. But how?

That’s where I come in. As the photo detective I’ve developed methods to solving photo mysteries of all sizes from a picture of a single person to one that contains dozens. I love working with you to solve your photo puzzles. Did you know that every photo collection is unique. They are. I should know I look at thousands of images every year.

I’m going to share 5 tips so you can get started.

Start with the most recent photo. It’s a lot like the standard genealogy advice to begin with the present and work backwards. While looking at the photos, you’ll be time traveling in reverse. You’ll be watching people get younger instead of older. Try to match up the faces in these images.

Bring all these big group portraits with you on your phone or tablet AND have an oversize copy made of the image for note taking.

What you’re looking for are two things that anchor the pictures in a time frame. Who’s the oldest person in the photo? Who’s the youngest? Those two people can date a picture. They help identify the time frame and in some cases the specific year.

Where are they standing? I don’t know about you, but I have a tendency to stand near my husband and children in the group portraits. Study the image and look for clusters. There are a lot of different cluster combinations in group portraits. All the older siblings in the center is one option. All the children in the front row is common too. But after that people with strong relationships tend to stand near each other. At this point think about all the family stories you’ve heard about who in the family had close ties. They are likely to be close together.

No doubt about it, you’re going to need to know how old everyone in your family was at a particular point in time. And I mean everyone….cousins and spouses as well as children.

Have you charted your family history? Spreadsheet. If you have known photos of those people you’ll add one or two to the spreadsheet and definitely id them in your photo organizing program.

I’m working on a descendancy chart for my husband’s next reunion. I collected information by me

I'm thrilled to be offering something new. Photo investigations. These collaborative one-on-one sessions. Look at your family photos then you and I meet to discuss your mystery images. And find out how each clue and hint might contribute to your family history. Find out more by going to maureentaylor.com and clicking on family photo investigations. 

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