Happy New Year to all readers of this CREE web site!

Here's a puzzle for all you family history detectives. Please look at the photograph below which Lynne Coakley has sent. She thinks it shows her Cree relatives of Beighton, Derbyshire. She asks, "Do you know of any method I could use to identify the family?"

These people will probably be complete strangers to you of course, but it would still help us (and especially Lynne) if you could have a stab at answering these questions.

1. Can you use the style of photograph, the style of dress or any other clues to say roughly in which year the picture was taken?

2. Does the style of dress suggest a particular type of occasion?

3. Does the style of dress suggest a particular social class?

4. Please give your estimate of the age of each person shown. Use the letters A, B, C, D, E, F to identify the ladies from left to right and G for the gentleman.

5. (The $64,000 question) The family probably originates in Beighton, Derbyshire. If you are from that area, do you recognise anyone in the photo?

Please email your answers to .

If we get enough answers, we may be able to average the answers to 1 and 4 and come up with a set of birth years which matches a particular family.

Many thanks in anticipation.

Mike

Click on photo to enlarge