Every family has the box. Shoeboxes, biscuit tins, an album with the corners coming off. Dozens of faces, and with each passing year fewer people who can name them. This guide is a method for working through the box before the names are gone for good.
Triage the box first
Do not start with the oldest photograph. Start with the ones most likely to still be identifiable: groups where you recognise at least one person. Sort into three piles:
- Anchored — you know at least one person in the picture.
- Datable — you know roughly when or where it was taken (a wedding, a house you recognise).
- Mystery — nothing to go on yet.
Work the anchored pile first. Every name you fix becomes a clue for the next photograph.
Date the photograph
A rough date cuts the possible people in half. Clues, from most to least reliable:
- Writing on the back. Dates, studio stamps, a name in pencil. Always photograph the back as well as the front.
- The format. Small square prints with white borders are usually 1950s–60s; deckled (wavy) edges cluster around the 1940s–50s; postcard-backed portraits and stiff card mounts are pre-1930; colour with an orange cast is 1970s.
- Clothes and hair, especially of the women and children.
- Objects. A car, a radio, a bicycle, a brand on a shop front.
- Known ages. If you can put a name to one child and know their birth year, the photograph is dated.
Read the group
Family photographs follow rules. In a formal group:
- The oldest couple sits in the middle; their children stand behind or beside them, usually with spouses next to them.
- Grandchildren sit on the floor or on laps, in front of their own parents.
- Who is missing matters. A married daughter absent from a family group often means she had already emigrated — or died.
- A black armband, or an all-black dress dates the picture to within a year of a death.
Count the children and compare with the tree. "Five children standing, and Grandma had five siblings" is often enough to place the picture.
Compare faces across pictures
Ears, hairlines, the gap between the eyes and the shape of the jaw change little between twenty and sixty. Put a known portrait next to the mystery face. Zoom in on the ears. It sounds odd; it works.
Family resemblance also runs in lines: if the mystery man looks exactly like your uncle, he is probably your uncle's grandfather or great-uncle, not a friend of the family.
Ask the family — the right way
Sending a whole photograph to a family group chat gets "no idea, sorry" from everyone. Instead:
- Crop to one face and ask about that one face.
- Ask a specific person, the one most likely to know, not the whole group.
- Give the clue you have: "This is at Avô Manuel's wedding in 1952 — who is the woman on the left with the child?"
- Ask who else might know. The answer is often a cousin you have never met.
This is exactly why Kindomus lets you draw a box around each face in a family photograph, link it to a person in the tree — or leave it as an open question — and send that question straight to the relative who might know, by WhatsApp or email. The answer comes back attached to the photograph, not buried in a chat.
Record what you learn where it cannot be lost
The tragedy of the box is that the names were once known. Someone knew, and never wrote it down. Whatever you learn:
- Write it on the picture, or on a copy, or tag it digitally — not in a separate notebook that will be separated from the box.
- Record the uncertainty. "Probably Tia Amélia, per Mãe, 2026" is far better than a confident wrong name.
- Set the best face as that person's portrait in the tree, so that every relative who opens the tree sees the face and can correct you if it is wrong.
What to do with the mystery pile
Do not throw it away. Photograph the fronts and backs, put them in the tree as untagged family pictures, and leave them. Trees grow; a cousin you have not met yet will open the tree in five years and say "that's my grandmother". It happens more often than you would think — but only if the picture is somewhere the whole family can see it.