Identifying
Photo Detective: Marital Mystery Premium
Rikki Martin has a confusing family photograph. She can identify the posed group as her great-great-grandfather Orton Yaddow, his children and one of his wives. But is the woman with the child on her lap Yaddow's first or second wife? Before immigrating to the United States from Quebec, Canada, in...
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Photo Detective: Identifying an Illustration Premium
Sometimes things aren't quite what they appear. Maxine Leonard's aunt and uncle gave her this picture when she was 5 after she became upset they were moving away. Leonard has treasured the ornate framed illustration of a child in front of a Christmas tree because it reminds her of her...
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Photo Detective: New Zealand Mystery
There are compelling photographs in every family collection that contain a mystery. In New Zealander Dafanie Goldsmith's family, there is this portrait of a woman in mourning with a haunting expression on her face. She looks so lost that you want to know more about her. In 1904 her...
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Photo Detective: A Little Help from Your Friends Premium
One of the best ways to identify an image is by making it available to others. This week, rather than telling you how I solved a picture puzzle, I'd like to show you how Family Tree Magazine reader Janet Meleney is solving her own photo mystery—with a little help...
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Photo Detective: Rescuing the Past Premium
Steven Barcomb often drove by the house his wife's family had owned for about 50 years. One day, he noticed that someone was cleaning out the house and had discarded a large box of unlabeled 19th-century photographs. Thinking they were probably abandoned family pictures, he rescued them from the trash...
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Photo Detective: Aging Well Premium
I've spent a lot of time this month cleaning out every nook and cranny in my house. All this tossing of goods made me think about the clothes people hang onto as they age. Dating a photograph of an older person presents a unique dilemma: Is the subject wearing...
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Photographic Jewelry Ideas Premium
Years ago when my children were little, I took them to a portrait studio to have their pictures taken. In addition to the standard 8 x 10-inch and 5 x 7-inch prints, the studio asked if I wanted a miniature portrait in a piece of jewelry. I selected a charm...
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Photo Detective: Long-Distance Call for Help Premium
Joanne Wallace owns copies of these undated portraits of her great-grandparents, Patrick Wallace and Sarah (Foley, or Folan) Wallace. She knows almost nothing about their lives in America and would like to learn more. Unfortunately, she lives in Hong Kong, which makes genealogical research possible only from a distance. All's...
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Photo Detective: Physical Evidence Premium
Gena Graddy is looking for a photograph of her Civil War ancestor William Joseph Taylor (1836 to 1895). She has a box of about a hundred unidentified tintypes and thinks one of them might be a picture of Taylor taken before the war. Graddy knows that Taylor was a married...
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Photo Boot Camp Premium
A military photo of your Civil War ancestor could have you whistlin' “Dixie” or singing the “Battle Hymn of the Republic.” But with no standardized uniforms until the 20th century, how do you know which tune to hum?
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