play dress-up military photos

[OC Richard]

Thanks so much for all the insight. Now if I could only determine who it is! Unlikely, but I’ve done it before with another photo from Grandma’s garage, though it took quite a few years. It was a photo of a man standing at a large machine with large pipes around him. Years later, researching my genealogy, I found that my second great-grandfather’s occupation was as an engine operator at a colliery. Long story short, I was put in touch with volunteers at the National Mining Museum in Scotland who confirmed that the machinery was consistent with the winding gear for hauling the cage up and down a mineshaft. So it’s highly likely that the man is my second great-grandfather. The photo is now being included in a book by a woman who writes about mining history in Dalry, North Ayrshire. And then just last week I came across another unidentified photo that I had set aside years ago and realized it looks like the same person, so now I have two photos of him. So, you never know, I may someday be able to identify the piper. But at least I can be happy that he really is a piper.

What a great trove of family history!

BTW the piper photo looks to be around 1870s or 1880s.

Some of my guess comes from the overall look of the photo, another clue is the style of his Glengarry.

The early Glengarries we see (around the 1840s) are much taller than modern ones.

Glengarries start shrinking until in the 1860s they look very much like modern ones.

But they keep shrinking, and in the 1870s (like your photo) they're a tad smaller than modern Glengarries.

And they keep shrinking, becoming rather tiny from, say, the 1890s through WWI, after which they start growing again.

When I say "modern" size Glengarries I'm talking, say, from around 1970 through today HOWEVER in the military they've continued to grow, the current style in the Royal Regiment of Scotland being a bit bigger than they have been for a half-century.