Fashion clues in pictures can document trends over a decade, but specific details can sometimes pinpoint an exact year or two. Like the puffy large crown hats of circa 1910 or the Paul Poiret tapered narrow skirts of the circa 1912, supposedly influenced by bi-plane rides. Or the Garibaldi shirt style popular in the early 1860s. In 1864, walking skirts that belled out above the ankles were the rage in Paris. it was a winter of dresses drawn up over colored skirts with plaid edging. There are fas...
Aug 12, 2020•12 min•Ep. 93
All those little details of a photo such as the who, what, where, when, and why can be embedded in your pictures with metadata. Imagine never losing that data. Today metadata isn’t always transferable from product to product or website to website. There is room for improvement. Now there is a project called the Family History Metadata Working Group that is trying to standardize the way this information is represented in your pictures (and make it easier to understand). Fingers crossed that this ...
Aug 05, 2020•33 min•Ep. 92
Our nineteenth and early twentieth century female ancestors couldn’t vote but that doesn’t mean they didn’t want to. In the mid-nineteenth century a group of female activists tied together dress reform, political activism and abolition using dress to broadcast their beliefs and their daughters and granddaughters followed in their footsteps. After listening to my guest’s description of what women wore when and why, you’ll be reaching for the family photograph albums to see if you can spot these c...
Jul 22, 2020•36 min•Ep. 91
All this hot humid weather has me thinking about how our ancestors coped in the heat. Long dresses and undergarments in light weight cotton seemed like a sweltering combination. One of my podcast guests loves dressing in period attire. She claims that the outfit is cool, but I’m not convinced. Hot summer weather makes me think about swimming. But what did our ancestors wear and when. Of course it varied by generation with each successive generation of the twentieth century wearing less fabric th...
Jul 15, 2020•11 min•Ep. 90
It’s likely that if you listen to the Photo Detective podcast that you love family history from the stuff to the stories, but do you love all the parts of collecting, preserving, and sharing your family history? I bet there are pieces that appeal more than others. According to my guest, genealogy might be part of your personality. That’s right. If you’ve ever felt a need to find facts, tell tales, or write it all down, then that family history pursuit could be a part of you. Imagine finding coll...
Jul 08, 2020•24 min•Ep. 89
Forget the luxuries of early 21st century travel, early 19th century tourists who visited wartime sites usually dealt with bad roads and shoddy lodgings. Instead of the romantic visions of history depicted in paintings and writings, they found sites littered with discarded armaments and bodies of the fallen. Veterans greeted these tourists with reminiscences of their wartime memories. Historian Thomas Chambers shares how battlefield tourism enabled wealthy educated ancestral travelers to make th...
Jul 01, 2020•32 min•Ep. 88
Scratching your head over what your ancestor did for work? The answer is usually in a census or city directory, but it also might be in a photo. The late 19th century saw an interest in capturing people at work and businessmen in formal portraits. Such images hold clues to the kind of business in the tools and attire shown. In your own collection there are probably images of individuals wearing clothing that puzzles you. Some may be recognizable as work outfits while others remain mysterious. Yo...
Jun 17, 2020•11 min•Ep. 87
Everything has a story. That hat your grandmother wore at her wedding. The china passed down for generations. A photograph perhaps. Or maybe you have inherited something else. It might be something that’s special to you from your lifetime. Sharing the story of the “things” in our lives can help us share the past with our family. That’s where my guest comes in. Martie McNabb is a story facilitator. She does this through her business Show and Tales. On the show we talk about themes for her events ...
Jun 10, 2020•29 min•Ep. 86
Pinup photos usually feature young barely dressed women, at least that’s what’s popularized by Sports Illustrated but suppose I told you they don’t have to be. That you could pose in period dress and look like a glamorous turn of the century, Evelyn Nesbit or like a silver screen star ala Gloria Swanson. Pick a period. Choose clothing and have your make-up done in the style of the era. Smoky eyes of the silent movies or the red lips of the 1950s. It’s up to you. My guest specializes in a photogr...
Jun 03, 2020•28 min•Ep. 85
I have three uncles and a great uncle that served in the Navy during World War II. While aware of resources for images for Army service, I didn’t realize that the U.S. Navy had a museum and a photo archive. Well. They do and a lot of their material is online thanks to my next guest. Robert Hanshew served with the United STates Navy and his interest in history led him to a career in archives. He wrote a popular Facebook column for the Navy that regularly got a million views. He shares what’s onli...
May 20, 2020•43 min•Ep. 84
A few weeks ago I was in the kitchen of a cousin on my Dad’s side scanning her photos and recording her thoughts on them. All of a sudden she leaned over and pointed at an image. “That’s my favorite photo,” she said. “ I don’t know why. There is nothing special about it.” The color snapshot from the 1960s showed her mother stuffing a turkey getting ready for Thanksgiving. It wasn’t the best image of her mother. Jeanette couldn’t remember who took the candid. The event took place in the kitchen i...
May 13, 2020•10 min•Ep. 83
These are very interesting times in which we’re living. I feel the need to leave a record of this behind for my descendants and maybe you do too. Thankfully my two guests are busy collecting and documenting our experiences in a project for the State of Rhode Island. If you live here you can participate. Anyone of any age can add material to the new RI Covid-19 archive. Pictures, stories and video are all being collected. Link is in the show notes. In this episode we talk about the roots of this ...
May 06, 2020•37 min•Ep. 82
Family historians in the United States are likely familiar with our genealogical conferences–NGS, FGS, Regional Conferences and of course the mega conference that’s Rootstech, but there are other conferences held around the world. MyHeritage offered an international conference in Norway, then the Netherlands and this year its being held in Israel. In the United Kingdom, I attended the Who Do You Think You Are LIVE conference for several years running. It offered me an opportunity to explore reso...
Apr 22, 2020•26 min•Ep. 81
It’s a great time to work on your photographs. I’ve been working on some photo-related distractions. On the Photo Detective Facebook page there is a photo reunion challenge. Thirty days of identified photographs from my collection. These are images I’ve picked up here and there over the years. Help me find them a home! If you spot one of your relatives send me an email with how you’re related to them. On Instagram folks are putting together alphabets of topics. My inspiration is the alphabet of ...
Apr 17, 2020•12 min•Ep. 80
For two decades I’ve searched for images of the Revolutionary War Generation. The individuals who lived during the war who lived long enough to be photographed. Often there is a name but no image. Not everyone sat for a likeness even far into the nineteenth century. It’s possible that some folks did, but the images were lost, misplaced, or destroyed. It happens. In volume two of my Last Muster series I featured. Deacon John Phillips (1760–1865) At the time the only image of him appeared in Harpe...
Apr 08, 2020•34 min•Ep. 79
It doesn’t matter where you live. There are constants in a search for genealogical facts and details that transcend geography. For instance, we know that family gifts can spur an interest in family history. This week’s guest is proof positive of that. As a teenager his grandmother sent him a box of images and those pictures gave him the gift of discovering his family’s past. Good record keeping in his home country took him part of the way on that journey. The pictures proved that for decades the...
Apr 01, 2020•37 min•Ep. 78
Have you ever thought you’d love to interview a member of your family about their life? In this episode, personal biographer Francie King shares tips on how to get individuals to talk and the importance of listening as you record. As a former journalist she knows how to refine a story and gather the facts. We chat about ghost writing, the process of putting it all together and the power of hearing our relatives voices. She’s a master at the art of gently encouraging individuals to share their pa...
Mar 18, 2020•40 min•Ep. 77
In this episode I’m sharing tips on dealing with twentieth century baby photos and news from Rootstech. You’re probably thinking I wish I was the Photo Detective. I bet she doesn’t have any unidentified photos. Well...that’s not quite true. I have some. Most folks do. I’m working through the few I have by studying the clues and my family history. One of them is a group portrait. My Dad identified his father and grandfather. The rest are up to me. It’s likely a community group gathered for a summ...
Mar 11, 2020•15 min•Ep. 76
Imagine working on your family history and suddenly you’re sidetracked by a bit of information. That’s what happened to my guest, James Castellan. His pursuit of one man’s story led to a new understanding of World War I and to his becoming a film scholar on American cinematographers in Germany. He won a writing award fromThe International Society of Family History Writers and Editors for his article The Memoir of Eleanor Castellan: The Years in the Pacific Northwest, 1910-1919. Edited by James W...
Mar 04, 2020•41 min•Ep. 75
It’s been a couple of years since I’ve checked in with Daniel Horowitz, of My Heritage.com. We talked about instant discoveries, what happens when information is uploaded in a different language, and how you can use watermarks on your images. Daniel shares a big announcement about family photographs. The new tool developed out of a company-wide hackathon to develop new features. For a demonstration of how to use instant discoveries, click the link in the show notes for Episode 11 https://maureen...
Feb 19, 2020•30 min•Ep. 74
Working on the MasterClass on Digital Photo Organizing with MemoryWeb has taught me a few things. It’s reinforced my love for using a digital photo organizer because it makes it so easy to find the exact image I’m looking for when it’s needed. But it also helped me see my research deficits. In the process of “cataloging” all my images I found some long lost images. The steps in the process made me realize what I have and what I’m missing in the way of family history information for some of the i...
Feb 12, 2020•17 min•Ep. 73
Our family photos reveal our ancestor's fashion choices and those clues can help date a picture. The collars, cuffs, hats, and shoes worn by our grandmothers teach us about the period in which they lived, but those details also tell us a bit of the story of their lives. Historical costume is on display in movies and television, but you can also find costumed historians at historic living history events. That’s where I spotted today’s guest. She was a guest at a local historic house party. She wa...
Feb 05, 2020•38 min•Ep. 72
Way back when colorizing photographs was a controversial topic. Should they or shouldn’t they be colorized? Now there is wide public support for the process. It’s done digitally, not like our ancestors adding color with artist materials. You can find whole collections of images of historical events looking like they were taken yesterday in eye-popping full color. The techniques and tints used today or nothing like what was used a decade or more ago. Photo colorists match the authenticity of the ...
Jan 22, 2020•30 min•Ep. 71
What are your plans for 2020? I have a few. From reviewing my podcast episodes from last year to expanding educational offerings, this year is going to be full of chances to chat with me at conferences and connect through Masterclasses. In this episode, I review the most popular podcast episodes of 2019. Photo scanning, finding photos, women patriots, and family reunion planning top the list. The links are below just in case you missed one. . Have you signed up for my new three-part Masterclass ...
Jan 15, 2020•28 min•Ep. 70
In the old days, we’d print our photos and hopefully write identifying information on the back. Some folks would add them to albums. Then print photos became old-fashioned and digital images became popular. We took thousands of new photos and scanned the old. Our hard drives and cell phones are full of photos with no data. Finding what we want is often like a horror movie. Convenient to carry all of them around but if we can locate the exact image we want, then we’re in trouble. There is a solut...
Jan 08, 2020•17 min•Ep. 69
Have you ever wished you had time to write your family history? My guest today has a way of encouraging you to tell your family story in manageable bites. It’s her popular 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks program. She supplies the prompts and you write, blog, scrapbook, or Instagram something about an ancestor each week. There’s no pressure to participate every week. I guarantee at the end of the year you’ll have made progress on that family history. We chat monthly on our Heritage and History FB Live a...
Jan 01, 2020•34 min•Ep. 68
On stormy winter afternoons, my Mom would drag out the boxes of family photos and would reminisce about fifty years of family history. My sister and I would pick photos out of the box and ask her to tell us about the people in them. One thing would lead to another. It wasn’t about the pictures. They were the inspiration for her stories. Since then, I’ve developed a signature approach to identifying photographs. I’ve used my technique on thousands of photographs over the years. There are simple a...
Dec 18, 2019•19 min•Ep. 67
I love a good movie. Maybe you do too. Could there be any better film than one that profiles a person or moment in your family history? There is more than one way to start a holiday discussion after the main course. Why not show a short family history related film. Animoto makes it easy. Upload your images. Pick a template. Start editing. Add a soundtrack and you’re done. Share it with family online or in person, but be sure to have a recorder nearby. You'll want to capture all those stories. A ...
Dec 11, 2019•30 min•Ep. 66
I’m fascinated by re-discovered history be it photographs, places, or films. Motion Picture history is a lot more varied than many of us realize. In the early years of the movie industry, production studios were all over the country. Unfortunately, most of that history is now lost. The Library of Congress and museums and archives all over the world are trying to piece together that past. Today’s guest wants me to weigh in on some of these mysteries just like I do with your family photos. Links: ...
Dec 04, 2019•43 min•Ep. 65
Caring for your photos and heirlooms just got easier. It used to be difficult to find the right supplies. The materials safe to use with your pictures. Well, guess what? Gaylord, the company that might just be the oldest archival supplier, launched a line of products for genealogists. Did I mention they have knowledgeable staff to help you buy the correct boxes, tissue, and card stock to preserve your photos (and all your other stuff too. ) I caught up with my guests at the New England Regional ...
Nov 20, 2019•34 min•Ep. 64
