Thursday, October 25, 2007

As this Wall Street Journal article explains, with the increased popularity of genealogical research, the demand for the work done by historical photo detectives has increased.

"Maureen Taylor has dated a photograph to 1913 by studying the size and shape of a Lion touring car's headlamps. Armed with her collection of 19th-century fashion magazines, she can pinpoint the brief period when Victorian women wore their bangs in tight curls rather than swept back. Using a technique borrowed from the CIA, she identified a photo of Jesse James by examining the shape of his right ear."