Names lost, photos remain a mystery

Twelve-year-old George exudes self-assurance, smartly attired in bowtie and double-breasted wool jacket as he poses for a portrait with a younger companion.

Truth be told, though, we don't know George from Adam. A photographer captured the moment, but the details of his subjects, the time, and place have been lost to the generations.

That's why the amateur detectives at the Boylston Historical Society are calling on the public to help solve the mystery of ''Boylston's Unknown Citizens."

The traveling exhibit debuted at the public library last week, the first of nine stops for this collection of unidentified photographs.

World War II veterans marching in a Memorial Day parade, Girl Scouts bowing their heads, an older man pumping gas -- they are all part of Boylston's 218-year history. Some photos come with brief but cryptic notations; others bear no description at all.

"They write strange things, like 'mom' or 'aunt Hilda' or 'last Christmas,' " said Betty Thomas, executive director of the Boylston Historical Society and Museum. "They're almost as bad as having nothing written on them."

The society is steward to roughly 8,000 photographs, passed along as donations or picked up at local yard sales. The images document the history of photography itself: early tintypes, glass-plate negatives, black-and-white and color photos. Most appear to date from the 1880s to the 1940s.

The Historical Society started building its collection in 1971 by putting out a general appeal for donations.

"They took anything and everything," Thomas said.

But contributions have trickled off. Potential donors ''want to keep their family heritage rather than giving it away to a historical society," she said, noting the increased interest in genealogy.

Still, many old family photographs languish in attics or cellars. Others sit anonymously in antique shops or flea markets.

And that's a waste of precious resources, said David Fischer, the Warren professor of history at Brandeis University in Waltham.

"We're using visual materials in a way we've never done before," Fischer said. "Young people today have a much more highly developed visual intelligence. It makes the photographs and other visual materials much more important to us in trying to reach the public."

Like other materials owned by the Boylston Historical Society, photos are cataloged and archived in a vault. They are brought out for exhibits like the current one chronicling the service of three Boylston soldiers during World War II.

The old photos are also useful to homeowners tackling restoration projects and to genealogists filling out family trees.

For the sake of posterity, conservators recommend using a soft-lead pencil to record pertinent information on the back of photographs.

"You don't want to use any kind of inks that might seep through the supports and get on the image," said Monique Fischer, who specializes in photographs at the Northeast Document Conservation Center in Andover. Ink also can transfer from one photo to another when stacked, Fischer cautioned.

People who view Boylston's traveling exhibit are asked to write any helpful information on Post-it notes. Thomas also has prepared handouts on caring for and identifying photographs.

"In general, if people put names, dates, and places, that's perfect, and that's a great starting point for researchers," said Megan Friedel, who catalogs between 10,000 and 15,000 photographs a year for the Massachusetts Historical Society in Boston.

"I just try to develop a storyline for photographs," Friedel said. "We can and have gotten out old Boston maps and old photographs and tried to map out where the photographs are taken. That takes a lot of work, but it's also a lot of fun."

Only four of 27 photos were identified during a similar Boylston exhibit two years ago.

"Because we had it in the museum the whole time, not very many people saw it," Thomas said.

But one photo jogged the memory of Edith Anderson, a long-time Boylston resident who's now 87 years old. Anderson recognized the portrait of the late Kate Taylor, who was the town's postmistress and the owner of the Red Barn Restaurant, which went out of business during World War II.

"I was the waitress at the time she ran the Red Barn," Anderson said. "I worked at the Red Barn summers for about three years."

Thomas hopes this year's traveling show catches the eye of others like Anderson. The exhibit ends May 31 with its final 10 days at the Boylston Historical Society and Museum.