03 High Street - how we identify photos
Here is an example of the often long and tricky process we go through to identify "orphan" photos. Accuracy is everything and we never just guess, as this helps perpetuate false information and once it is out there, it is often difficult to correct! In this particular instance it took almost two years on and off before we could be 100% certain of the location. I am recording it here because I think it is such an interesting story.
Immediately we were able to identify the car as a 1923-25 Willys-Overland Model 91 Tourer. Because the whole family were posing with the car, we assumed it was a newly arrived addition to the family. The number plate 10824 dates it to around Dec 1924/Jan 1925.
Key identifying features of the building: It was a two story building with at least one upstairs window - or a single story building with a parapet wall and a feature that resembled a window. We were looking for a building that had (or once had) a verandah with a distinct pattern on the corner brackets. That ruled out most of the buildings in New Norfolk. Identifying name on the signage was HW (Herbert William) Traill known as Bert Traill.
First we tried to match it to a known location where Bert or his family had conducted business. The most obvious candidate was 44 High Street because it had Bert's name on the building and at that stage we didn't know when he first opened at this location. It had a verandah but no posts - doesn't mean it never did but the parapet would need to be dramatically changed to make it match. So we ruled out this location. Next candidate was the building next door at 46 High Street operated by his brother ER (Sam) Traill - definitely not a physical match and the building still stands so we know it is the same as the original building with no renovations. And lastly 43 High Street which apart from not being a physical match, was the wrong time frame (1940s).
Next we looked at every shop verandah in New Norfolk to see if we could find a match for the distinctive corner brackets - nothing even close. We had to consider the possibility that maybe this building wasn't located in New Norfolk at all. But our research told us that Bert Traill had lived and worked exclusively in New Norfolk.
We found a Trove article that featured Alexander Traill (Alex) & Sons as the proprietors of the newly opened American Soda Fountain in 1925. We already knew the location of the soda fountain because we had a 1932 photo of it, but we still dismissed this as the location of the mystery photo because the only name I could see was HW Traill and the features of the building didn't seem to match.
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Having come to a dead end, I left it for several months and came back to it much later. While looking through the Wise directory for 1925, I found Traill A, confr and Traill H W, grcr & frtr so I decided to take another look at the mystery photo. This is when I had the epiphany! I realised that the partial word visible on the sign did not say "Auctioneers", but "Confectioners"! How I missed this I do not know. I was looking for HW Traill and I knew Bert was an auctioneer at a later period so my brain made a false connection. We were getting so close but still not quite making the connection.
I looked at the top of the parapet in the 1932 photo and thought could it be? The different viewing angles of the two photos made it deceptive, but now I could see that nothing actually ruled it out. Surviving members of the Traill family said they thought the mystery location was in Burnett Street but the more I looked, the more convinced I became that this was the same building. But my contact in the Traill family said no, it was definitely two separate businesses.
Then at last, a moment of clarity. What if the building in the mystery photo wasn't one shop but two shops side by side? Alex Traill with his confectionery store on the left and Bert Traill with his grocery and fruit store on the right. The building was certainly big enough. (thank you Ken Traill for this gem of inspiration that helped us to complete the picture). I was now convinced and confident enough to put it on the website, with the disclaimer that I was only 99% sure.
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Now comes the really interesting part. Apart from creating all those videos of kittens in chef hats cooking spaghetti, AI could be used to analyse images! Obviously the first thing I asked Google Gemini to do was compare the two photos and confirm that yes indeed, it was definitely 100% the same building. Then I prompted it to remove the people and the car to see if it would reveal anything of what was behind. I gave it explicit instructions not to invent imagery that wasn't supported by the photo. I instructed it to rely only on visual evidence where it could be seen. Naturally the AI algorithm got a few things wrong because it couldn't see behind the car, but what it got right was truly amazing. It confirmed that there were indeed two shops with separate entrances. And it revealed the house next door 01 High Street and the corner of Circle Street. Once you see it, it's obvious - AI just made it easier to see. Here are the two photos together so you can see the features that the AI generated image revealed.
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