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Old Photographs, Recognition, Handwriting Deciphering => Free Photo Restoration & Date Old Photographs => Topic started by: Gmac101 on Monday 10 March 14 23:10 GMT (UK)

Title: Photo for Dating - Gideon & Maggie Brown
Post by: Gmac101 on Monday 10 March 14 23:10 GMT (UK)
Dear All
Can anybody advise a date for this photo.  Birth Dates are 1851 for Gideon and 1854 for Maggie.  They lived in the Scottish Borders, he was a successful woollen manufacturer and she was mother to 8 children and did a lot of work for charity and bred dogs.  They married in 1877.  The photo is rather unusual as it's printed on very thin paper and the original is rather creased and torn (I've cropped and tidied this up) The photo is taken outside their house "Eastfield" in Galashiels, which they bought in 1881, could it have been taken to celebrate the purchase?

Thanks in anticipation
Title: Re: Photo for Dating - Gideon & Maggie Brown
Post by: Seoras on Tuesday 11 March 14 09:32 GMT (UK)
Just bumping this up as it's going down the list. Hi Gmac, for what it's worth, I think this is later than 1881.
Title: Re: Photo for Dating - Gideon & Maggie Brown
Post by: AJ100 on Tuesday 11 March 14 10:14 GMT (UK)
Agree with Seoras, given the birth dates I would put it around 1890.

Regards

AJ
Title: Re: Photo for Dating - Gideon & Maggie Brown
Post by: jim1 on Tuesday 11 March 14 10:44 GMT (UK)
Their dress styles suggest the early part of the 1890's.

jim
Title: Re: Photo for Dating - Gideon & Maggie Brown
Post by: Gmac101 on Tuesday 11 March 14 23:10 GMT (UK)
Thanks Seoras for keeping it near the top - When I looked again their faces, despite the fact they moved during the exposure, they look older than their early thirties / late twenties.  Jim, was there anything specific about the clothing that put the date into the early 1890's
Title: Re: Photo for Dating - Gideon & Maggie Brown
Post by: jim1 on Tuesday 11 March 14 23:50 GMT (UK)
His waistcoat with the separate button-hole for his watch chain dates it after 1888.
Her jacket with the raised shoulder dates it 1889-93.

jim
Title: Re: Photo for Dating - Gideon & Maggie Brown
Post by: Gmac101 on Wednesday 12 March 14 06:49 GMT (UK)
Thanks everybody - and Jim those details are fascinating - With access to as much cloth as they fancied I suspect they kept up with fashion

Gavin
Title: Re: Photo for Dating - Gideon & Maggie Brown
Post by: jim1 on Wednesday 12 March 14 11:14 GMT (UK)
As this doesn't appear to be a CdeV taken professionally by the way you describe it & as their faces are slightly blurred my guess is that this was taken by a friend.
Title: Re: Photo for Dating - Gideon & Maggie Brown
Post by: Gmac101 on Wednesday 12 March 14 19:26 GMT (UK)
Their eldest son - William Brown was a keen amateur photographer - He was born in 1878 so if this was 1890-2 he would have been 12-14 - it is possible but maybe unlikely that he took it.

He was a doctor and worked for a while on the Shetland Islands.  My grandfather donated a lot of the slides he took in the early 1900's to the Shetland Museum and they are now online.  This is William

http://photos.shetland-museum.org.uk/index.php?a=advanced&s=item&key=XYToxOntzOjEyOiJQSE9UT0dSQVBIRVIiO3M6ODoiQnJvd24sIFciO30=&pg=134 (http://photos.shetland-museum.org.uk/index.php?a=advanced&s=item&key=XYToxOntzOjEyOiJQSE9UT0dSQVBIRVIiO3M6ODoiQnJvd24sIFciO30=&pg=134)

Gavin
Title: Re: Photo for Dating - Gideon & Maggie Brown
Post by: jim1 on Thursday 13 March 14 10:43 GMT (UK)
There's no reason why he couldn't have taken it.
Title: Re: Photo for Dating - Gideon & Maggie Brown
Post by: SWilliamson on Saturday 28 June 14 15:44 BST (UK)
Nice photo......just staring to work on this family for a regional tree I am doing.  It would be nice to put a face on a name as most of the images we have are birth / marriage / death registrations.  Do you mind if I borrow this for the tree?  We are basically following families from the Nairnshire area and Margaret Ann McPherson belongs to one of these families.

Sherry Williamson
Nairnshire Area Family Trees
www.nairnshirearea.tribalpages.com
Title: Re: Photo for Dating - Gideon & Maggie Brown
Post by: Gmac101 on Sunday 29 June 14 23:10 BST (UK)
Sherry

Margaret Ann McPherson was my Great Great Grandmother and took an interest in her family history and gave my Grandfather many notes on the family - which I am slowly putting together.  Please do use the photo, though I have a number of others, some are very fine studio portraits.  I also have a recording made by one of mums friends who plays the bag pipes of a march written for her after WW1 by some of the troops she supported. 

Look forward to hearing from you

All the best

Gavin