Social media detectives are helping Queensland State Archives (QSA) fill in the gaps of missing information in its near-200 years worth of records.

For the past couple of months the archives and record management authority, based in Brisbane, has been turning to Facebook as well as "the front page of the internet" Reddit, to help uncover lost facts.

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So far they have helped correct or gather new information for dozens of their images, with thousands of others up their sleeves needing help.

Archivist Nova Watson said while many viewed it as a challenge the QSA's postings were legitimate calls for help.

"We genuinely don't know the answer, which is why we ask for help," she said.

"Unfortunately in a lot of cases the supporting documentation for some older photo collections no longer exists.

"There's a few people who really get into it, you can see the ones who comment a lot."

Ms Watson said anyone able to help was welcome to contribute.

"Some of these pictures were taken quite a long time ago and sometimes the information about them gets lost or the information wasn't recorded at the time."

A mysterious hovercraft from the 1960s was one of the more perplexing entries QSA have posted recently.

It was originally believed the photo was taken somewhere on the Brisbane River in early 1963.

The original post stated: "A debate in Parliament in November of that year mentions an experimental hovercraft at the University of Queensland. Maybe it's the same vehicle?"

"We put it on Reddit and Facebook and managed to figure out what it was and its history. When we put the picture up there was virtually no context at all," Ms Watson said.

A housing commission house on Orontes Rd, Yeronga in 1949 - identified by social media detectives. ( Supplied: Queensland State Archives )

Ms Watson said one photograph of a housing commission came with the month and year it was taken, but not the street it was on.

"So it helps us when we put them out ... people really get into it trying to figure out which street in the suburb it actually is," she said.

"I think sometimes people are from the area and can recognise landmarks ... the Indooroopilly one, some people looked at it on Google Maps and it looked very much like it.

"For that one I had to look at Google Map entry and it looked pretty spot on."

Redditors solve mystery of missing address in less than an hour

The latest picture puzzler uploaded by QSA took less than an hour for Redditors of Brisbane to solve.

A photo attached to a Courier-Mail article from October 1952 came only with its location, the suburb of Carina.

Ms Watson said anyone is able to help. ( Supplied: Nova Watson )

"[It's] one of about 1,200 homes built on Queensland Housing Commission estates at Carina in the mid 1950s," QSA's post read."

"We're not sure if it's in Carina itself or what was then called the 'Carina Estate' in Belmont."

With only that information to go off the internet got to work.

"Looks like my house but mirror image … there are quite a lot of houses that look like this in the area," one person wrote.

But the search did not go on for long. Within the hour, one Redditor suggests an address on Mayfield Road.

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Another backed them up, and hours later QSA had consulted Google Street View and were confident it was the correct address.

The new information was added to the photograph both in the QSA database and on image hosting website Flickr.

"These are fun, please post more," one person writes.

QSA promised they would keep coming back.

"We have thousands of photos of Queensland Housing Commission dwellings."

Facebook followers recognise 1940s playground

But not all images are solved so quickly.

One particular photograph of children playing in a Brisbane sandpit took longer than usual.

"We put that one out on Facebook ... and it was one of the harder ones we've had ... it took people a bit longer to date it," Ms Watson said.

"There was a tram in the back left-hand corner, so people were trying to date it from the tram and someone had an aerial photo of the area and located the park with the tram in the back of the park, and that's how they figured out which one it was.

"Social media detectives" helped identify this c. 1940 photo as the Diamantina Receiving Depot and Infants' Home in Wooloowin. ( Supplied: Queensland State Archives )

"It was originally listed ... I think it was just 'playground at hospital', but it wasn't actually at one of the hospitals.

The photograph was eventually unveiled as the Diamantina Receiving Depot and Infants in Woolloowin, circa 1940.