Photo Detective: Go West Premium
A single family photograph can serve as a valuable social history document. Take for example this group portrait (Figure 1), which provides a link to a violent chapter in American history: the settlement of the West. Phyllis King found this picture among her great-grandparents Arthur D. Barrows and Francis A...
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Apply Census Data to Your Photos Premium
Picture research is a combination of genealogical research tools and library materials.
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Photo Detective: Italian Family Premium
Do you have old photographs of ancestors in foreign lands? If so, identifying those images could help you uncover your family's immigrant origins—just as these two photographs connect the Raiola family in the United States to their Italian kin. The writing on the bottom of Figure 1 reveals that...
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Meet the Photo Detective, Online and at FGS
I'll be at the Federation of Genealogical Societies Conference in Philadelphia Sept. 2-6, and I hope I'll see you there. You can visit with me in my booth, #304, in the conference exhibit hall. It's a great chance to chat with me about your family photos or just stop by...
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Sports in the Family
Like many of you, I'm glued to the TV and online news sources watching the Olympics. While I don't have any Olympic hopefuls in my house, there are plenty of athletes on the family tree: In one oft-told tale, my husband's grandfather had an opportunity to play for a major...
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Medical Conditions and Family History
Two weeks ago I put out a call for photos showing medical conditions. There are three images and one blog link in this post so be sure to read all the way to the end. The inspiration for that request was a photo that Elizabeth Vollrath emailed me in May...
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The Weller Family Revisited
My search for living descendants of the little girl in Finding Family Photos on the Web is ongoing. It's a perfect example of how not everything is on the web. Having looked at census records and whatever else was online, I ran into a virtual brick wall—I'm sure you know...
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Spotlight on Family Health History–The Photo Side
There was a very interesting story about Pio Pico, California's last governor under Mexico, in the July 19 Los Angeles Times. "What made Pio Pico so, well, ugly?" focuses not on the political happenings of his administration, but on how a daguerreotype of him helped identify a medical condition...
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Finding Family Photos on the Web
A couple of weeks ago I wrote about how one genealogist created a short video about her online photo discovery. I was so intrigued by her effort that I decided to try putting together a short piece with images depicting flags. It's one of my collecting areas—I can't...
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Is This the Same Man?
Charles Blyth found this handsome daguerreotype in a group of identified family photographs. He thinks the man might be a colleague of his great uncle, but isn't really sure. It's beautiful and in pristine condition, so I couldn't resist this challenge. It's important to remember daguerreotypes are reversed. Before comparing...
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