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Old Photographs, Recognition, Handwriting Deciphering => Free Photo Restoration & Date Old Photographs => Photograph Resources, Tips, Tutorials => Topic started by: Brittaya on Wednesday 04 June 14 19:32 BST (UK)
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I hope this is the right place for this.
I'm in a group for postmortem photographs. Often a person will post a photo of an infant or toddler who appears to be deceased and everyone automatically assumes it is a girl because the child is wearing a dress. I finally got tired of this and asked someone what made them think the child was female and they had no answer. Anyway another poster commented that you can supposedly tell the child's gender by the part in their hair. I had never heard of this before so I tried some google searches. I haven't been able to come up with anything conclusive. There was one website that claimed boys hair was parted on the side, but there was no citation or sources. And looking at my own little collection of Victorian & Edwardian photos of children whose gender is known to me, I wasn't able to prove this to be true. I do know that it was somewhat popular for girls to have a middle part as Queen Victoria did, but I'm not sure I would conclusively guess that every child with a middle part is female based on that alone. So I'm looking to you lovely people, what is your experience with this? Is there any truth to this?
Thanks for weighing in,
-Brittaya
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When I was growing up we were told that boys had their parting on the left and girls on the right. It annoyed some of the older women in my family that my parting fell more naturally on the left as I am female.
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Hi....It is a commonly held belief that infant boys have brows but girls don't...not sure how scientific this is though.
Carol
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Thank you for your replies!
Hmm interesting. Brows as in eyebrows? I'm rechecking the photos I have and it appears both the boys and girls have very light eyebrows, these ones specifically are related to one another so I'm wondering if it's simply a genetic trait to have light coloured eyebrows? I had not heard that boys parted on one side and girls on the other, very interesting. Though most of the photos I am looking at the baby/toddler has no part at all, the hair is simply brushed forward. And the older children seem to have their hair all parted on the same side (the left) boys and girls alike. Though one of the teenage boys has a middle part..
-Britt
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I should have said that baby boys have prominent brows whereas girls don't .
Carol
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Attached is a photo of my dad and his twin sister aged about 9 months I guess (they were, of course, alive at the time). They've both got their hair parted on the same side and both wearing dresses but I'm sure you can tell which is my dad and which my aunt.
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Your Dad was on the left? (ooh - I don't know now)
(I bet he loved that photo :) )
Trystan
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Trystan - He's the blondish one on the right as you look at the photo. ;D He ended up with hair as black as his sister though.
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I don't know what he thought of the photo, I only came across it after his death well after my mother's death, 4 years after his. The original is in a bad state and I posted it on here for it to be restored, to what you see now.
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I really wouldn't have been able to tell which was which - so I'm glad I got it wrong in a way, just to say it's not very obvious I don't think.
The one on the left looked a bit like one of our neighbours (a grown up chap), so that's why I thought it may have been your dear father.
I'm sorry about that.
Trystan
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It's mentioned that toddler boys wore much shorter dresses and this was done until they were potty trained. This site gives other clues also. And I notice the boy is wearing a much shorter dress. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breeching_(boys) , Tommy
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Tommy - I'd never thought about the length of the dress, but I did notice that my dad's - underneath the white top - was a dark colour whilst his sister had a lighter colour.
Trystan, don't worry about getting it wrong, my dad would probably think it was hilarious that you thought he was his sister and she was him.
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I know this is an old thread, but I have only just joined.
Here is a photo of me, taken probably in 1939.
My Mother always wanted a girl, so she dressed me up for the occasion instead.
I don't look like that any more, alas!
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Hi....It is a commonly held belief that infant boys have brows but girls don't...not sure how scientific this is though.
Carol
I think thiscomes from the archaeological practice for establishing whether a skull is that of a male or female. It is the next best to DNA so quite good.