Any experience identifying relatives from portraits?

[rosettesforjill]

Hi all

I have already posted this in style and beauty and had some helpful information, but I wonder if any of you have any experience of or any tips for identifying relatives from portraits?

I have two oil paintings (in pics) and all I really have are approximate date (thinking mid 1800s based on clothing), and what side of the family they are on. There is a potential candidate for the woman thanks to somebody else on Ancestry posting a couple of pictures, which I have also added - the sepia/black and white ones. Do you think this looks likely?

TIA!

[CharityShopChic]

Those are amazing portraits - how lucky you are to have that sort of thing in the family.

You are not going to be able to get a 100% yes/no as to an exact identity but there is lots you can do to narrow the window of the time the photograph was taken and work it out from there. Especially in the early years of photography, fashions of how to stand/sit and accessories changed regularly and this allows for fairly accurate dating. I would suggest looking at this Facebook group

[CharityShopChic]

ooops sorry

www.facebook.com/groups/337276269784836/

THIS facebook group which is called Genealogy CLUES- Dating Old Photographs. Lots of experts in there who will help where they can.

Google also have a photo recognition tool which will look for possible photographs/images of people from images you upload.

www.hawk-hill.com/old-photos-facial-recognition/

It's a powerful tool but most useful for 20th century relatives as there is likely to be more images of people out there if they were born at a time when photography was more common. It's being used to great effect for identifying people who died in the Holocaust, for example.

Good luck!!

[rosettesforjill]

@CharityShopChic

Those are amazing portraits - how lucky you are to have that sort of thing in the family.

You are not going to be able to get a 100% yes/no as to an exact identity but there is lots you can do to narrow the window of the time the photograph was taken and work it out from there. Especially in the early years of photography, fashions of how to stand/sit and accessories changed regularly and this allows for fairly accurate dating. I would suggest looking at this Facebook group

Thank you so much! I will try the Facebook group.

They are fabulous portraits and clearly from a time when my family were a lot more upper class than we are now I've just had them restored so they're looking particularly fancy!