Your questions answered

Might this photo be of my grandmother?

Q My maternal grandmother, Mary Elizabeth Duncan, was illegitimate. She was born on 1 May 1901 in the Workhouse in Strabane, Co Londonderry, N Ireland. She was then adopted by the local Ballantine family. My grandmother died in 1974 and I have only recently seen this photo from an album of hers that has been passed down to one of my sisters. Unfortunately, the photo is untitled so I wondered if you could tell from the little girl’s dress whether it might be my grandmother, perhaps photographed sometime between 1905 and 1910? It does look rather like her. Any help would be most welcome.

Anne Scott

A This is a charming photograph taken by a professional studio photographer at a time when not many households yet owned their own cameras. Without confirmation of its dimensions or a view of the back of the photograph, we do not know where it was taken and I am not aware of its format: it could well be a postcard, the most popular type of photograph between the early-1900s and 1940s. However, this isn’t certain; so we shall focus on the visual image.

Sunday best

Our ancestors usually dressed in their best, most fashionable clothing when visiting the photographer and for her portrait sitting this little girl has been put into a beautiful ‘Sunday best’ frock fashioned from fine white muslin-like lace-edged material. It is an ornate version of the smock dress first introduced in the 1890s for small girls: featuring a fitted yoke, the length of the fabric falling freely. This mode remained popular until the First World War. In vogue for at least 20 years, the white ‘Sunday best’ smock dress, as seen here, was worn by many late-Victorian and Edwardian female children.

Typically childish details

Young girls’ frock hemlines were worn short, just below the knee, but in certain stylistic respects their clothing echoed adult fashions. Here the child’s feminine bodice featuring a wide, floating collar-like detail called a ‘bertha’, and decorative elbow-length flounced sleeves directly mirror the form of female blouses dating to the period c1905-09. More childlike is her juvenile hairstyle, worn loose around her shoulders according to the prevailing fashion, her white hairband and bows also typical of the early-1900s.

You mention that your grandmother, Mary Elizabeth Duncan, was born in 1901 and given the provenance (ownership history) of this photograph and the album in which it was contained, she seems to be an excellent match for this little girl. I would estimate the child’s age to be around five to eight years old, so if she is Mary, the year would be 1906-09.

Jayne concludes:

Unless we are mistaken about the subject’s identity here (unlikely: the date fits perfectly, you have spotted a physical resemblance, and who else would she be?), this picturesque image offers