Humidity and Photos
As I sit in my air-conditioned home office, it's hot and humid outside. The combination of these two weather Hs are bad for family photos. Resin-coated color images tend to stick together when it's humid. The H and H also creates the perfect environment for mold to grow on your...
View DetailsTracking Down a Famous Relative
Attached to the inside velvet of this cased photo is a cryptic note, “may be great-grandfather Swale author of Geometric Amusements.” It’s a mystery to the photo's owner, Susan Wellington, who can’t imagine how Swale might be related to her. Is this a family photo or a 19th-century collectible...
View DetailsPhoto Detective: Motor Trends Premium
Get more genealogical mileage from your old family photos with this lesson in automotive detailing.
View DetailsBest Travel Guides for Genealogy Roadtrips Premium
Before AAA, our ancestors turned to these tomes for travel advice. Today, they're great tools for time travelers.
View DetailsHow to Find and Use 8 Colonial Immigration Records Premium
Did your ancestors arrive before the 1820 advent of passenger lists? Don't assume they're untrackable! These eight sources to find early immigrants' origins.
View DetailsLook to the Past (Columns)
If you're new to this blog you probably aren't aware of the lengthy archive of past "Identifying Family Photographs" columns available on the Family Tree Magazine Web site—just click on the Photo Detective Archive link on the left of this page. You can read about submitting your own picures by...
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Understanding a Traveling Photographer
In this Photo Detective article, Maureen Taylor delves into the mysteries of an unknown photographer and when the photo in question might have been taken.
View DetailsIt’s Confession Time: Developing Old Film
Kelly posted a question to the Forum in February about developing old film.She found a camera with film in it from the 1960s and her camera shop sent it out for processing. It's confession time. This is your chance to sound-off in the Forum about film you've forgotten to...
View DetailsPorcelain Complexion (Literally!)
I own a pillow case with a photograph of my grandmother taken in about 1910. You’re probably thinking it’s an unusual picture format, but it’s actually not. In the early days of photography, daguerreotype buttons and jewelry were common. Once paper prints and light-sensitive chemicals became readily available, photographers could...
View DetailsBlanket Backdrop Identified!
Thank you to everyone who wrote in about the beautiful bed covering featured in my April columns. (If you missed reading them, they're posted below.) My public library is a wonderful place for books, but the staff members are also great resources. One of the circulation librarians...
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