Naturalization Witnesses

[darkerhorse]

Just wanted to pass along a research strategy I've found useful, especially in identifying unknown persons (usually non-relatives) in old photos.

I've hunted down witnesses in naturalization papers who were friends or associates of the applicant.

Sometimes I've found photos of these witnesses online (in records, family trees, Find A Grave, etc.) and then contacted the owners of the photos, confirming identities and solving some family riddles.

[darkerhorse]

Any other ideas for clever ways to identify friends or other unrelated persons who associated with relatives?

[joetucciarone]

That's a great idea - I'm going to dig up my family's naturalization certificates, write down the names of the witnesses and see if they're in family trees on Ancestry.com. A lot of subscribers include photos of people in their trees, so there's a lot of potential for identification there.

On a related note, if you have undated, unlabeled cabinet cards with unidentifiable people, the name and address of the studio that's printed on the card can help date the photograph. Old business directories list the years of operation of some studios. Doing this, I dated several cabinet cards and it helped me identify the people in the pictures.