Colleen Fitzpatrick (the rocket scientist) in her book, \"Forensic Genealogy.\"
Fitzpatrick examines a picture of three men behind a bar in a saloon. The picture was thought to have been taken in New Orleans at an unknown date. A poster on the back wall of the bar shows a woman dressed in the style of the late 1800s or early 1900s.
But, as Fitzpatrick points out, it could be an old picture or a reproduction of an early poster. The man on the left, behind the bar, sports a handlebar moustache consistent with the turn of the 20th century. Again, nothing specific to date the photograph.
A cash register between the other two men has greater potential for dating the picture. It may have become a collectible item.
There is a Web site for cash registers on the internet which gives one the dates each register was produced. It is
brasscashregisters.com
. In this case, research determined the register was a model 348 made especially for bars and cafes from 1909 to 1918. Given the clothing and moustache on the gentleman she dated the picture as 1909 or 1910.
Fitzpatrick cautions people trying to date photographs by clothing styles. She writes: \"While clothing styles can serve as a starting point, they can rarely provide the detail that identifies the date of a photograph. Men's clothing styles are relatively more stable than women's, making it difficult to associate a given type of suit with a specific date … . Women's clothing styles change more frequently with major changes usually, but not always, appearing as an accumulation of many smaller ones.\"
