In response to the person with the question on the Ottawa photographer, Topley. William James Topley established his studio in 1872 in Ottawa. The business continued under himself and his sons until 1926. Most of the photos are portraits, with collections at libraries in Vancouver (University of British Columbia), Halifax (Public Archives of Nova Scotia) and Toronto (Toronto Library) as well as at the National Archives. I believe there are about 240,000 Topley photos in the National Archives collection, mostly portraits, but also including Ottawa scenes and other parts of Canada. I viewed several of the plates when I was last in Ottawa in May. Most of the photos are deteriorating and are not in the public collection but can still be viewed by special arrangement at the Gatineau Preservation Facility. The labelling on the photos typically gives little information (ie, few dates), but the photos are usually labelled with the name of the person in the portrait, and these are indexed on-line. Go to the National Archives website, www.archives.ca On the site, you want to go to ArchiviaNet, and select photographs. Type "Topley" to see more about him and the collection, and type the surname of the person of interest to see if there might be a photo of them in the collection. Copies of the photos or negatives can be ordered from the archives. As for dating, the outside range is 1872-1926. You might be able to narrow it down if the photo is in the archives collection, or if there is other information on the label, such as the photographer or the address of the studio at the time. See the website for that information. Jaimie McEvoy New Westminster, British Columbia, Canada. _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp