Old-Photo Reunions

I have a friend who has phenomenal family history luck. Around each genealogical corner is another discovery. She goes to libraries and finds new family in almost every book she picks up, posts online queries and actually gets an answer. A couple of years ago she used a popular message board to try to find out more about a couple that moved west. What do you think happened? You’re right. She met a distant cousin who not only knew all about the married pair, she had a photo album full of pictures from the 1870s. In one fell swoop she reconnected with a whole generation of folks. Sheesh!

If you envy her picture success and want to locate pictures of your ancestors then try these tips:

• Check out a reunion site.
• DeadFred.com is the most popular with more than 5,000 people looking for images each week. If you find family then email Joe and his staff. They’ll try to facilitate a reunion by putting you in touch with the person who posted. If it’s a picture that the staff at DeadFred bought and posted and you can prove your relationship, the picture is yours.
• AncientFaces.com is probably the second runner up in the reunion category. I don’t have stats for the site, but take a look. It’s well worth a visit.

• Post to a message board
• When you post looking for information add that you’d love to see pictures of these ancestors as well. There are hundreds of genealogy message boards so rather than list them here go to Cyndislist.com for Queries and Message Boards.

• Search digital libraries
• The Library of Congress is just one of many libraries across the country and overseas with digital image collections. A list of sites appeared in the October 2003 issue of Family Tree Magazine in the article “Picturing the Past” by David Fryxell. That’ll get you started, but in the four years since the article appeared even smaller historical societies and libraries have begun adding pictures to their web sites.

Hope these tips enable you to find new images of relatives. Share your successful photo reunions on the Photo Detective Forum. I can’t wait to hear about what you’ve found!