One More Time: Funny Pictures
I have another album of funny pictures to share with you. This time, there's even an entry from faraway Chile. Thanks to the Web, this column has readers around the globe.Laura Cook sent me several images of her grandmother Marie Schultheis clowning with friends in the summer of 1913...
Read More
An Album of Funny Pictures
Last week I asked readers to submit funny pictures. Thank you to everyone who sent images. I've been laughing all week. So here they are...fun images that leave you wondering, "What were they thinking?"Sue Edminster sent in this photo (above) of men with numbers on the soles of...
Read More
Funny Ancestral Pictures
Roxanne Turpin sent me a photo that made me think about the transition in photo poses. In most of the images from the 1840s, 1850s and even 1860s technology and our ancestors' discomfort with being photographed combine to make folks look like they're in pain. Then suddenly, people started to...
Read More
Collecting Pictures of Your Ancestors
Genealogists are famous for collecting relatives, but what about acquiring images of those folks? Is it really possible to find previously unknown photos of family members from the advent of photography in 1839? The answer is that it depends. Family circumstances, their comfort level with photography and the availability of...
Read More
Spotlight: Denver Public Library Picture Collection
It's over 90 degrees in my town today. The heat and humidity make me start thinking about winter. With months to go before the snow, I did the next best thing. I looked at pictures of cooler temperatures I found on the Denver Public Library Web site. All right. Not...
Read More
Pictures Without Provenance
Hilda Barton sent me this lovely photo of a young girl with the subject line: "No Idea Who This is..." It's a picture without provenance. I've written about provenance before. It's the history of ownership of a photograph or other object. It's easy to underestimate the value of knowing...
Read MoreSign up for the Family Tree Newsletter
Plus, you'll receive our 10 Essential Genealogy Research Forms PDF as a special thank you!
Get Your Free Genealogy Forms
"*" indicates required fields
Tweet. Tweet. I’m on Twitter.
I've watched fellow genealogists talk about Twitter, but I've held back. Books, magazine articles and newspaper articles mention the power of Twitter. Oh boy, I thought. What is this new tool and how will I use it? I'm not really sure at this point...
Read More
Adding Up Photo Clues
I had trouble deciding the angle for this story. Would I discuss the problem of trying to figure out the photographic method or mention a family brick wall? Then I re-read all the emails from Randy Majors and decided to cover those topics as well as how he identified his...
Read More
Photos on the Web: Copyright Woes
If you've ever tried to copy a family photo at a store or photo lab and been denied due to copyright issues, there's an article you might be interested in. On July 19, the New York Times published an article about photos on Wikipedia, "Wikipedia May Be a Font of...
Read More
Which Immigrant is It?
I've been asked to determine which wife is in a picture or which child, but this is the first inquiry that referred to an immigrant-ancestor mystery. Jeanette Bias told me that "she knows everything about her family," just not who's in this picture. It's a scan of a cousin's...
Read More