Who Do You Think You Are? Live 2011

I’m posting a couple of days later than usual this week because I was in London for Who Do You Think You Are? Live. (Plus, I had a little downtime with my English friends.)

A series of last minute serendipitous things happened this year. I was able to provide photo consultations as a partnership with a British website What’s That Picture? I met that site’s creator, James Morley, three years ago at WDYTYA? Live. We’ve teamed up to take the site to the next step with an interactive timeline of photos supplied by users of the site and powered by Flickr. James is the technical genius behind it. Take a look at the timeline here. It’s still in it’s infancy, but we have big plans for it. You can add your dated family photos to it.

This press release appeared on the site and in the WDYTYA? Live newsletter just before I left for London. As soon as the show opened Saturday morning, the line (or queue, as the British call it) started forming. I’ve lost count of how many photos I actually looked it. Seems like hundreds, and it probably was. It was a fascinating experience to look at family photos from across the Atlantic.

I love looking at pictures from all over the world.! There are subtle differences in clothing, especially men’s work attire. The historical context of the images also has to be considered. English history has different milestones. I saw a lot of World War I images and some from the Boer War. One of the military pavilions would send folks to me to assign a photographic time frame to a picture, so they could go back to the military booth to find more information. We were sending people back and forth for the whole show!

I also managed to squeeze in a quick visit to the National Archives in England to meet with their photo specialist. Wish I could spend weeks looking at what they’ve got there! I was looking for something special, so I just might have to build another visit into my itinerary for next year.