Surely the greatest discovery for anybody researching their family tree is a photograph from Victorian times. Most 19th century pictures featured portraits of fairly affluent families, dressed in their finery, posing compliantly and severely for the camera.
In libraries, museums and archives up and down the country, however, many thousands of photos of a completely different nature are stored away. Their subjects are unwilling sitters who scowl defiantly and menacingly at the camera as their likenesses are captured for posterity - not for the family album - but for police and prison records.
