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by Maureen A. Taylor
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 Sunday, May 26, 2013
Decoration Day, 1868
Posted by Maureen
History intersects at ironic moments that make the past very interesting. Decoration Day, now known as Memorial Day, is one of those moments.
All over the United States on this day, towns hold parades and locals decorate veterans' graves. This stereo image from the Library of Congress depicts the first Decoration Day, held at Arlington National Cemetery on May 30, 1868.
A who's who of national figures gathered to pay their respects to the Union soldiers buried on the property of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee. That land also has a connection to the American Revolution.
It originally belonged to George Washington Parke Custis, the grandson of Martha Washington and the adopted son of George Washington.
When he died, the land was owned by his daughter, the wife of Robert E. Lee. During the Civil War, the property was used for military purposes. The US government bought it at a tax sale and dedicated 200 acres for a national cemetery. Approximately 16,000 Civil War soldiers are buried there.
The reviewing stand featured flags, bunting and touches of black. Two future presidents were in the stand that day.
Gen. Ulysses S. Grant and Gen. James A. Garfield are in this photo. Grant served as President from 1869 to 1877; Garfield served only 200 days before his assassination in 1881.
Garfield, who was a member of Congress, delivered the oration. He began with the following:
"I am oppressed with a sense of the impropriety of uttering words on this occasion. If silence is ever golden it must be here beside the graves of 15,000 men, whose lives were more significant than speech and whose death was a poem, the music of which can never be sung." (The New York Herald, May 31, 1868, page 10) There is debate over which city held the very first Decoration Day. In 1868, May 30th was selected because it didn't commemorate any battles and because flowers are in bloom. The last Monday in May didn't officially become Memorial Day until 1971.
Take a look at your family photo collections and see if you have photos of any veterans in your family. I'm going to post my pictures of those individuals on my social media pages to honor them.
Solve your family photo mysteries with these books by Maureen A. Taylor:
Family Photo Detective: Learn How to Find Genealogy Clues in Old Photos and Solve Family Photo MysteriesFashionable Folks: Bonnets and Hats 1840-1900
Preserving Your Family Photographs
Fashionable Folks: Hairstyles 1840-1900
Finding the Civil War in Your Family Album
1860s photos | Civil War | Revolutionary War
Sunday, May 26, 2013 4:29:21 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00) 
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Sunday, March 03, 2013
WDYTYA London and a Launch
Posted by Maureen
What a busy week! Last week at this time, I was walking through Shakespeare's birthplace recovering from two action-packed days of looking at photos at Who Do You Think You Are? Live! in London. I have some pictures to share.
As soon as I came home a new project launched: The Last Muster series of books that focus on images of Revolutionary War era folks is becoming a documentary. Genealogy Insider Diane Haddad shared the news.
If you're curious about what it's about, watch the trailer in Diane's post and read Judy Russell's blog post at The Legal Genealogist.
Back to London.
Guess who I saw when I was there? Lisa Louise Cooke of the Genealogy Gems and Family Tree Magazine podcasts AND Janet Horvoka of Family Chart Masters, aka the Chart Chick. It was cold in London, thus my fleece jacket and scarf.
English genealogists love a certain American product too. Couldn't miss this booth:
Love to Learn, an English company specializing in online education, gave us a nice place to work with photographs. James Morley of What's That Picture.com and I met with folks on Friday and Saturday. The lines were long again this year. People waited up to two hours to show us their photos.
We saw some amazing pictures, such as the pair of painted daguerreotypes held by these women.
This year I decided to count the number of pictures we saw. The total for the two days was over 500!
Solve your family photo mysteries with these books by Maureen A. Taylor:
Family Photo Detective: Learn How to Find Genealogy Clues in Old Photos and Solve Family Photo MysteriesFashionable Folks: Bonnets and Hats 1840-1900
Preserving Your Family Photographs
Fashionable Folks: Hairstyles 1840-1900
Finding the Civil War in Your Family Album
cased images | Photos from abroad | Revolutionary War | unusual clothing | women
Sunday, March 03, 2013 6:40:38 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
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Tuesday, July 05, 2011
What's it Worth and What's the Story?
Posted by Maureen
Photos come in different shapes, sizes and mediums. They also come with stories.
Let's take this image of Governor Blacksnake, aka Chainbreaker. I featured him in my book The Last Muster: Images of The Revolutionary War Generation. I'd found the image in the Extra Census Bulletin: Indians: The Six Nations of New York (US Census Printing Office, 1892) and on the cover of Jeanne Winston Adler's Chainbreaker's War (Black Dome Press, 2002), but with no attribution.
Months of searching archives, libraries and museums didn't turn up a single lead about the owner of the original daguerreotype. Was it lost?
In 2009, Cowan's Auctions featured the original daguerreotype and it sold for $22,325. Turns out the image had been found sitting in a box in a warehouse in New York State. A label on the inside of the image's case identified the subject of the daguerreotype and the photographer—Flint of Syracuse. It's a great case of lost and found.
There is a story behind this image. I'd love to know more about the photographer and why the photo ended up in a box of miscellaneous pictures. I know the story of the Chainbreaker's life. He recounted his story to a neighbor, Benjamin Williams, during the winter of 1845-46. He related tales about the Seneca tribe's involvement in the American Revolution, and bits about his own life.
The tale makes up the book The Revolutionary War Memoirs of Governor Blacksnake as Told to Benjamin Williams (University of Nebraska Press, 2005). It's available for preview in Google Books—access it in Family Tree Magazine's Google Library.
The next time you look at a family photo, take a few moments to consider the story behind the picture, such as who took it and when. Also consider what was happening in your family history around the time it was taken.
Your family pictures may not be as historically significant or as monetarily valuable as this portrait of Chainbreaker, but they have enormous family worth to your descendants.
I'm still working on my The Last Muster project and continuing my search for images of men and women who lived during the Revolutionary War and into the age of photography. For more information, see my website.
Solve your family photo mysteries with these books by Maureen A. Taylor:
Preserving Your Family Photographs
Fashionable Folks: Hairstyles 1840-1900
Finding the Civil War in Your Family Album
1840s photos | Revolutionary War | unusual photos
Tuesday, July 05, 2011 2:36:13 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
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