Old American Flag Photo Mystery: Best of Photo Detective
Photo Detective was a long-running FamilyTreeMagazine.com blog. Here, we've combined the best posts about an old American flag photo mystery.
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Aerial Photographs and Ancestral Home Towns
In the 19th century, daring photographers climbed into woven baskets held aloft by balloons in order to take pictures of local landscapes. While French photographer Nadar's photograph of Paris from the air in 1858 no longer exists, other such landscapes still do. J.W. Black of Boston photographed Boston from...
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College Girls in an Old Mystery Photo
Did your grandmother, great-grandmother or great-great-grandmother go to college? The proof may be in an old photo album. In the early part of the 20th century, young women filled black paper albums and scrapbooks with pictures of their family, friends and college activities. You might have one of those albums...
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Daguerreotype, Ambrotype and Tintype: Telling Them Apart
At a photo studio in the late 1850s, you could choose the style of portrait—daguerreotype, ambrotype, tintype or a paper card photo. So which is which?
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Old Blue Eyes in a Family Photo
This man's pale blue eyes stand out in this portrait.Jay Kruizenga submitted the photo with an inquiry about a date for the picture. He's hopeful it was taken circa 1857, making James Pennington (1828-1903) a potential ID for this man. Pennington would be 29 years old in 1857. This...
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Walt Whitman and Your Old Family Photos
Walt Whitman, 1854, Library of Congress. What could a famous man have in common with your picture collection? It turns out, plenty! Whitman (1819-1892), an American poet, journalist and essayist, had picture problems you'll find familiar. In 1888, surrounded by images taken of Whitman during his life, his friend...
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Finding Clues in Old Photos | A Memorial Day Tribute in 1918
A quick search for Memorial Day photos on the Library of Congress website turned up this image. According to the cataloging record, the original was a glass negative, and on the envelope was a note suggesting this was taken by the National Photo Company on Memorial Day 1918. ...
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Photo Detective: An Afternoon Outside Premium
Uncovering clues in historical photos to help you decode your family tree
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Counting the Clues to Solve an Old Photo Mystery
The three parts to this German photo mystery are the caption, the date of the image and the family history information. The first blog post dated the image to the 1880s, and the second post discussed caption translation confusion. Please read the comments to the Caption Confusion post. A woman...
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Piecing Together Old Photo Albums: A Challenge
Last week, I collected images from individuals who'd found photos in their registration goody bags at the National Genealogical Society conference in Fort Lauderdale. As the images flooded in to my exhibit hall booth, it quickly became apparent that this was an enormous photo identification challenge. Would it...
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