How Do You Date The Undated?

Sometimes you might come across a photograph with a little bit of information on it - which is better than no information, sure, but still maddening. Knowing where to look for clues can help you start to figure things out. In this case it was a photo of a small child swaddled up like their life depended on it and sat on a stuffed horse that made us think about sharing some of our techniques for contextualising items like this.

The back of the photo reads "Annie Ambler, daughter of Wm Ambler, died aged 6 years" and has a photographer's studio branding in the centre. No date, no further information about William. So let's see what we can discover with what we've been given!

Clue 1: the photographer. The branding on the back of this photo is for James Oliver, Photographer, Sowerby Bridge. James was a native of Scotland who settled in Halifax in the early 1850s and trained as a joiner before marrying local lass Elizabeth Camm in 1853 and becoming a bookseller and photographer. The BNA helps us to find his death at Hollins Mill Road aged 47 in January 1869, so the photo must date from before then. (HX Courier, 23^rd Jan 1869)...

...except it doesn’t necessarily date from before then, because James’s wife Elizabeth carried on his stationery and photography business after he died – her occupation is “stationer and photographs” on the 1871 Census. She had remarried by 1875 and so we can put those dates as the latest likely date of the photo being taken as it would be unusual for her to continue the business with his name on it after remarrying. Realistically this photo doesn’t predate 1855, so our timeframe is 1855-1875.

Clue 2: Age. Thank heavens for people who write information on the backs of photos (and yes, that is a hint). We are told on the back of the picture that this is of Annie Amber, the daughter of William Ambler, who died aged 6 years. So let’s head to Ancestry and the FreeBMD to see if we can figure out who she was, and knowing now that these were Amblers who probably lived in Sowerby Bridge.

Using the FreeBMD database, we’re looking for births and deaths between 1850 and 1881, so roughly 5-6 years before and after our window of photographic opportunity. Because the FBMD gives you age at death this helps, and so we can quickly see who we’re looking for: Annie Elizabeth Ambler. She was born in the fourth quarter of 1860 and died in the third quarter of 1866; just shy of 6 years old. In this photo she is likely about two years old, so the photo itself can now be dated to probably late 1862, early 1863.

Clue 3: Parentage. Now we know where she lived, that she would have been alive during the 1861 Census, and her father’s name, we can really begin to expand on Annie’s life story - as short as it is. The question I wanted to know was, is Annie here related to these other Ambers that we have photos of? Because we also have here two photos of a William Ambler and a photo of “the first Mrs. Ambler”, nee Murgatroyd, who apparently has “a window in her memory in Luddenden Church”. Since none of them are from James Oliver’s studio we need to dig to make sure that making a connection is the right thing to do.

The GRO index (www.gro.gov.uk) is a little less flexible in searches than the FreeBMD, but it has one very useful function for births – it shows the mother’s maiden name in the search results. Little Annie here was indeed the daughter of an Ambler and a Murgatroyd, so these people here were her parents. “The first Mrs. Ambler” was born Sarah Ann Murgatroyd, and she married worsted spinner William Ambler at the parish church here in Halifax on June 15^th 1859. Her father, John Murgatroyd, was a worsted manufacturer so she came from some money, but from the marriage certificate seems to have not been able to even sign her own name. Poor Sarah Ann! And poorer still Sarah Ann...because she died only a few months after Annie’s birth, in January 1861.

Sarah Ann Murgatroyd Ambler and William Ambler (neither photo dated...you can't win them all)

On the 1861 Census William is a widower, living with two servants and no daughter at Green Hill. So where did Annie go? She went to live with her paternal grandfather John Ambler at Peel House in Luddenden. She will have had the benefit of her unmarried aunts and uncle there as well as many servants, including a 16 year old nursemaid! I wonder if it was her nurse, young Ruth Ann Turner, who took her to the photography studio, or if it was John, or even William?

John Ambler in 1883, on his 88th birthday

William’s interests might initially have been elsewhere since in December 1861 he married farmer’s daughter Annie Taylor of Illingworth. They would have no children of their own, and whether Annie ever went back to live with them can only be determined by ordering a copy of her death registration from the GRO or by finding her death notice in the newspaper. Checking the newspapers on microfilm proved to be the more inexpensive option. Annie died in September 1866, mentioned in the Halifax Guardian as “the only and beloved daughter of Mr. William Ambler of Glen Royd”, and was buried in Luddenden Cemetery along with her mother and, later, her father. The commemorative window for Sarah Ann is still at St. Mary's in Luddenden, and if you go to see it yourself, you'll notice some other details; the first name on the window is of her mother Elizabeth, and after her, you'll find that the window is also dedicated to little Annie, and that it was placed by Sarah Ann's father John.

Photo courtesy of St. Mary's, Luddenden, via their Facebook page

William went on to some great things – manufacturer employing dozens of men, Justice of the Peace – and as with many items donated to Local Studies, we never have the full picture (or in this case all the photographs), so unfortunately we can't "picture" the second Mrs. Ambler. But at least we can now link the photo of Annie Ambler to the photos of William, Sarah Ann and John Ambler and make that connection.

This post isn't to show off the skills we learn as Local Studies librarians but to demonstrate that you, the reader, can do the same thing, and to show you some of the steps you could take in order to figure these things out for yourself. If you fancy a challenge, why not ask one of us in Local Studies to pick a photograph or two from our collection with unclear or incomplete information on it, and give it a go?