Robert Alex Ferngate faced four thousand undated photographs and exactly one pencil. What he built, over fifteen years at the farmhouse desk, was a system so simple the whole family still uses it — the three-clue rule.
Every photograph gets three clues before it gets a date: something worn (a uniform, a dress, a haircut), something built (a car, a pram, the barn roof before it was mended), and somebody known (the one face nobody argues about). One clue is a guess. Two is a theory. Three is a date you can write in ink.
The margin method
Robert never wrote on a photograph — that was Helen's job, in pencil, and only once. He wrote in the margin of the index card: the three clues, who confirmed them, and the year they agreed on. Any cousin can still challenge a date by bringing a better clue, and three have been overturned that way. The archive is prouder of those corrections than of any record.
“One clue is a guess. Two is a theory. Three is a date you can write in ink.”
Try it on your own drawer
Start with the photograph you argue about most. Find the uniform, the car, the face nobody disputes — and write all three down before you commit to a year. Then send us the result: the archive accepts challenges every first Sunday, and the kettle is always on.
