Palmerston North City Library seeks help to identify unnamed group photo

Do you recognise anyone in this photo?

Today we launch a new weekly feature, Manawatū Mysteries.

Palmerston North City Library is appealing for help in identifying photos on its Manawatū Heritage website.

More than 1700 images on manawatuheritage.pncc.govt.nz are unidentified, and heritage staff at the library are appealing for help in naming the people, places and events featured in these mystery photos.

The images came from community donations, garage sale finds, defunct businesses, family estates and op-shop purchases, or are unclaimed photos from commercial photographers.

Many of the images date back as far as the early 1900s. They include family portraits, sports teams, street scenes, people in uniform, community groups and character homes.

The photos capture Palmerton North and surrounding areas in its formative days and provide slices of local history the library is working to preserve for future generations.

“We are appealing to Manawatū Guardian readers to help us solve these mysteries,” heritage team leader Tracey Armstrong says.

“If you can identify the people or places, or know of links to your family and friends, let us know.”

Feedback or clues on solving these mysteries can be sent to heritage@pncc.govt.nz.

“From this week, armchair detectives and family history sleuths will have a new weekly mystery to solve. We look forward to sharing their finds with readers,” Armstrong says.

This week’s photo comes from a collection of unidentified negatives taken by H M Griffiths in the early 1900s, possibly between 1910-1920.

Many of these negatives are labelled as having been taken in Tokomaru. The collection was donated to the Palmerston North City Archives in 1971.