That is exactly the point. How incredibly sad. Was she from SC? Lots and lots of my family (Sullivan side) come from that area. Jefferson, SC to be exact, in the 1750's on.

I truly hope some happy circumstance occurs where your lady can speak. Thank you for taking her out from under the bed!

I am going to say, don't give up on potentially learning who some of the "unknowns" are, I have found several of mine. I had one, of a family and was at one of the libraries going through their family files and found a couple of the couple (man and wife) in the photo made the same day. Same outfits, hair styles. I was able to add another photo into the family file and also concretely identify my photo. So, it does happen.

As a genealogist, I can surely second this! Label those pictures! A cousin and I were trying this weekend to figure out who the people were in some pictures he has of our family. All the older ones are gone now, and my mother has dementia, so she doesn't remember. How sad and how frustrating! It would have been so easy to label them when they were new.

You all do realize that not all people are interested in how our dead relatives looked, particularly the ones that we can't remember. I just threw away lots of photos of relatives that were unlabeled. I am the oldest left alive in my family and obviously if I don't know who they are, no one will know. Also I don't care and my children, whom I asked, did not care to have the photos, nor did the grandchildren and the great-grandchildren are too young to ask. So the pictures were thrown away. I did keep all the tin -types just because they weren't photos, but no one knows who they are. Just curious looking people from another time long, long ago.

I just pulled boxes and boxes of photos from my mom's closet. Don't know who most of them are and some of them are duplicates and triplicates as her siblings passed away and she kept those too.

I plan to scan those whom I know and can identify. However, I know lots of them were her friends and people I never met.

I once heard there was, please don't beat me up over this, a 'market' for old B & W photos. At least they'd be used. Anyone know of anyplace that might want or purchase old photos?

Your local antique stores are the best starting place. Perhaps they have something you love and can work out a trade?

I am the collector of stuff in my family. I have copied relatives picture albums and have names on most of them. I am doing something now that a lot of genealogists don't agree with. I am using Adobe Elements and putting names right on the face of the picture with dates if known. Some think that this ruins the picture. However, I would rather see the names rather than an unnamed picture. I put groups of pictures on DVD and family can enjoy watching them and they can identify them. "Oh look, there is Aunt Jane when she was a teenager". It is really fun to hear all the comments. Also, this sometimes gets the younger folks interested in the relatives from the past.