If you have old family photos in your collection, and don't know when they were taken, a history sleuth coming to Schroon may be able to help you solve the mystery.

Maggie Bartley -- Historian, Teacher, Author and  Elizabethtown, NY Trustee with Essex County Historical Society -- will present a slide show presentation "Dating Photos by Fashion” this Friday, August 3, at 7 pm at the Schroon-North Hudson Historical Society.

This program reveals how the style of dress and fashion in photos can help date them, says the Historical Society's Loris Clark.

"Interested folks can bring in photos and learn how to tell when they were taken." Loris told Schroon Laker.

"We had a photo we thought was taken in 1910, but after Maggie examined it, turns out it was taken around 1900."

Maggie's program covers a period of 80 years between the dates of 1840 – 1920. Her presentation illustrates how styles changed during that period. Dating old photos is a great help to anyone interested in history, genealogy or simply has old unidentified or undated family photos, say Loris.

Margaret Bartley is a Trustee with the Essex County Historical Society. She is a historian, author and teacher, and wrote a biography of the famous Russian American cellist Gregor Piatigorsky, titled GRISHA, which won the 2005 Adirondack Literary Award. She is a former Elizabethtown Supervisor and is currently working with Historian Sharp Swan to create a comprehensive history of the Civil War’s 118th New York Infantry, known as the “Adirondack Regiment”.

She spent 26 years teaching History and Government, and has a Master’s Degree in Creative Writing from Johns Hopkins University. Her popular slide shows, which cover many aspects of Essex County History, are offered every summer at the Adirondack History Museum in Elizabethtown.

The program is free and open to everyone.