Canada Photographs and Photographers (National Institute)

Photography is such a huge topic for genealogists that many books and articles have been written on how to date photographs. I don’t really want to re-invent the wheel—there is a ton of material already out there that covers this subject much better than I ever could. Instead, I just wanted to cover a few points regarding photographs in Canada.

First of all, dating photographs is a tricky business. Every article and book will tell you dates that a particular type of photograph, or mode of dress, was in style, to help you better date when a photograph was taken. Some articles and books are so detailed in their material that they tell you that you can determine the period a photograph was taken by the thickness of the card the photograph was printed on, or the card colour, or what notched or bevelled edges to look for. (For a good discussion of all these topics, see Identifying and Dating Historic Photographs.)

Still, these dates are only meant as guides, and cannot pinpoint exactly when a photograph was taken. A family living on a farm in rural Manitoba is less likely to have the up-to-date style of dress that someone in New York or Toronto may have. Thus, a photo that you might assume was taken in the 1880s based on the style of dress may actually have been taken in the 1890s or early 1900s. You might also find a photographer who used his trusty old camera years after new ones came on the market. Although his camera was normally in use between 1850 and 1860, he might have still been using it in 1867. Because of this, you might incorrectly date the year the photo was taken.

To avoid these types of errors, I’ve adopted another method to help me in dating my old photographs. If the name of the photographer, or the photography studio, is printed on the card, I will search for the photographer in old city directories. If you can determine that a photographer was working only between the years of 1892-1895, you can determine with pretty good accuracy what year the photo must have been taken.

For anyone searching for a photographer in Ontario, the work of looking through city directories has already been done for you. Glen Phillips’ books The Ontario photographers list (1851-1900) and The Ontario photographers list (1901-1925) lists photographers in Ontario, and the years that they were in business. These books can save a lot of time and energy looking through city directories for photographers and their places of business. By entering the title in the World Catelogue search engine it is possible to find the location of libraries near you that hold this book. WorldCat is the world's largest network of library content and services listing over 2-billion holdings in 2014. According to the service’s website:


 * “WorldCat contains a ‘collective collection’ of the world’s libraries, built through the contributions of librarians, expanded and enhanced through individual, regional and national programs. WorldCat represents the electronic and digital materials most in demand by information seekers, as well as the important, unique items found only in local libraries.”

By entering your postal code, WorldCat will identify the closest library which holds the book. Often it is then possible to access the book through interlibrary loan if the nearest library is too remote.

Returning to the topic of Ontario photographers, there is also a website, Ontario Photos and Photographers of the Past that lists many photographers, their dates and places as well as samples of their work.

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