U.S. Navy Photo- Please help date

[Closed Account]

Please offer some suggestions as to the approximate date of this photo.  My working assumption is that this is a relative of mine who was born about 1873 and died in 1918, and therefore I am guessing that the photo dates to the 1890s or early 1900s.  It could of course be older (i.e., his father's generation) or closer to WWI (e.g., in the event it is his brother or a brother-in-law that lived longer than him).

This should be the photgraph of a man in the U.S. Navy, but I am unsure of his rank.  I have been unsuccessful so far in reading the wording on the hat, but I think that this indicates the name of the ship aboard which the man served.

[Redroger]

400% magnification shows middel two letters as "LE" now all we need are the rest.

[John915]

Good morning,

It could take a while but here is where to finda list of USNavy ships. That is ALL ships that have served in that service; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_Navy_ships .

Good hunting John915

[Redroger]

To start the ball rolling again, from the link kindly provided I think the name of the ship could be USS Lebanon, the length of the word is right as it seems to have 5 letters after LE; also dates in service 1898-1922 fit nicely with the believed date range of the photo. There could of course be others in the list which are more likely.

[Closed Account]

Thank you all for your insight here, and especially that link to the ships.  My initial reading of the hat was something like "LERING", and so for the third letter to be a "B" for the Lebanon looks like a good fit to me.  The years for that ship do fall in line with the expected date for the photo, which is nice too.  Maybe it is due to the photo's condition, but I have been inclined to think that the photo was actually earlier than the 1898-1911+ dates for this ship (i.e., more like 1890-ish).  I guess that there is nothing based on the uniform itself that could give any further clues as to its date or the man's rank?  Also, would you all agree that the ship's name starts with "LE" rather than has "LE" in the middle of it?  There is some sort of writing on the hat before "LE", but I am thinking that this probably says something like "U.S.S.".

[Redroger]

Yes, I was thrown by the lettering before the Le at first, then it clicked with me that it was probably USS which then made the search a whole lot easier. Regarding the condition of the photo depending where it was taken and printed quality of paper worsened during and as a result of the war, the better stuff was used for military purposes.

[John915]

Good evening,
I hate to be the one to put a spanner in the works but I think the LE comes in the centre of the name. It's taken me a while to find a good picture but check the following;
http://bluejacket.com/sea-service_uniform_b.htm 
Scroll down to the obvious picture and you get the best I can find, about the right era. It would appear the USN did not put USS on the hat but USNavy followed by the name of ship.
As the presumed date of birth is 1873, the photo subject looks to be about 20/22 so we are looking at 1893/5 for a date. I agree with your thinking but I thought about it and logic tells me that the centre of the writing should be over the nose and not the 2nd S. Lebanon fits in with that date but I think we are looking for a longer name of which there are many on the list. Do we have a name for the subject which may help with finding a ship if we can access USN records.
John915

[Closed Account]

Yes, I was afraid that might be the case.  The surname involved is Lang, and the man is named either Thomas (born about 1867) or his brother Joseph (born about 1873).  I might have to contact the US National Archives at some point to see if they have anything, but I was hoping to narrow down the date, ship, and possibly the rank before that in order to make the search more efficient as Lang seems to be a rather common name.

[Redroger]

But I was somewhat unsure about "USS", to my mind with the letters before "Le" being lower case US Navy fits even better.