Photo Detective with Maureen A. Taylor - holiday

Twelve Months of the Photo Detective

Maureen — Mon, 31 Dec 2012 16:07:01 GMT

It's time to look back at the year. Every week I write a Photo Detective blog post—that's 52 columns in 12 months. It's a lot of free photographic advice and tips. Here are my month-by-month 2012 favorites.

January
Last New Year's I offered advice on sharing images online, tackled a photo mystery about the identity of the mother in a picture, and discussed a Scottish picture.

February
I got into the planning for my trip to WDYTYA Live in London by comparing British and American fashion.

March
Hat's off to spring! Last March I featured toppers for men, graduation caps, and talked about the relationships between hairstyles and hat design. If you want to learn more about hats or hair, my books, Fashionable Folks: Bonnets and Hats 1840-1900 and Fashionable Folks: Hairstyles 1840-1900, will help.

April
The whole month of April focused on identifying photographs of children. Study the clues to add names to those pictures of tykes.

May
A trip to the National Genealogical Society inspired a series of columns on the Jeffers Family photo.

June
You can view the entries in the Family Tree Magazine photo contest, study a photo of ancestral blue jeans or be awed by the images of wheat threshing.

July
With the world watching the Olympics, I deciphered the clues in a picture from the 1908 Olympics.

August
I revealed the winner of the Family Tree Magazine Photo Contest. That photo mystery now appears in my new book, The Family Photo Detective. It's now available in the ShopFamilyTree.com store.

Have you considered the relationship between photography and genealogy? I took a look at the types of records that help solve a picture mystery.

September
This month was all about preservation. A badly damaged image encouraged me to talk about ways to save family pictures. There is more information on storage and labeling images in Preserving Your Family Photographs.

October
A picture of a giant mechanical grasshopper appeared in my Photo Detective column in Family Tree Magazine, and some readers stepped forward to tell the story of their ancestors' fascination with creating these creatures.

I shared the story of a woman who found a family picture after three decades and explained how old-time photographers could alter pictures long before the development of Photoshop.

November
Have you ever posed for a multi-generation photo? It's not a new phenomena. Our ancestors did, too. Mary Lutz sent me several images of her family. It turned into a series on identifying who's who in a group picture.

December
I love snapshots! They are spontaneous and often capture bits of everyday life. Follow this series on a picture of a man standing in his backyard.

Thank you for reading this column and for submitting your family photos. If you'd like to participate, there is a link, "How to Submit Your Photo," in the left-hand margin. I can't wait to see your pictures!

Happy New Year!

Solve your family photo mysteries with these books by Maureen A. Taylor:

Fashionable Folks: Bonnets and Hats 1840-1900

Preserving Your Family Photographs

Fashionable Folks: Hairstyles 1840-1900

Finding the Civil War in Your Family Album

Your Farmer Ancestors: Threshing in South Dakota

Maureen — Mon, 02 Jul 2012 14:44:49 GMT

There are a lot of comments on my posting on the threshing photos I saw last month at Jamboree. I learned a lot about the threshing process. Thank you!

Sharon Pike sent in another picture of threshing wheat. It's of her family in South Dakota.

Being from the East Coast, I'm not used to seeing such a vast expanse of land. It's so beautiful. The large haystack at the horizon draws your eye from the workers in the foreground to where the sky meets the field.

On the back of Sharon's photo is a note that states that Will Pike is in back of the "header." She's not sure which part of the machinery is the header. Can someone help out and comment below?

Will's full name was James William Pike (1887-1931), son of James S. Pike and his wife Hattie Weed. Will traveled around with a crew that harvested wheat. He lived in Brookings, SD, and later settled in Wisconsin.

Happy Fourth of July this week! I've created a couple of short films on my Vimeo channel to honor the occasion: One is a colorized engraving depicting a veteran in uniform and the other showcases flags in photographs. I hope you enjoy them!

Solve your family photo mysteries with these books by Maureen A. Taylor:

Fashionable Folks: Bonnets and Hats 1840-1900

Preserving Your Family Photographs

Fashionable Folks: Hairstyles 1840-1900

Finding the Civil War in Your Family Album

Holiday Photos from Your Family Albums

Maureen — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 14:32:18 GMT

Thank you to Kim Dawson, Carol Norwood and Fran Jensen for sending in holiday photos from their family albums.

Kim Dawson sent me this lovely photo of a family with their Christmas tree. The child is Elsie Marion Quakenbush (born 1908). She's posed with her mother Ella Baird Quakenbush and her father, Alfred Garfield Quakenbush. On the back it says "To Grandma with love from us all don't fail to see Elsie's baby doll it looks just like a baby." I enlarged the picture to look at the doll.

It is pretty life-like. It looks like Elsie also received a book "Sing a Song of Sixpence" and a tea set. Her parent's are proudly posed with a new Victrola so perhaps that was their Christmas present. Elsie looks about 6 or 7.

Kim thinks that Alfred's brother George Willis Quackenbush took the photo. He was a photographer in Oxford, New York.

Carol Norwood submitted an image of her parent's Bill and Cita Jacobs. They are sitting under the tree at Cita's parents home in Hartford, Connecticut. The Jacobs were still newlyweds. They were married three months prior to Christmas.

Fran Jensen emailed me this charming studio shot of four children. Her grandfather, John Roy Tolve Johansen is on the right. His sister Alma sits next to him. She's hugging a china faced doll. The other boy and girl are the Bough's who were the photographer's children. It was taken in Ringsted, Iowa.

Here's one more picture. This is one from my non-family collection.

I don't know the identify of these two boys, but on the back it says "Christmas 1898." Don't you just love their modified Little Lord Fauntleroy suits.

Happy Holidays! If you want to see more Christmas trees, I have a short video on my Vimeo channel.

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

Trick or Treat in Your Family Album

Maureen — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 18:50:39 GMT

It's Halloween and time for trick or treat. You might have images of this holiday in your family album. These two young girls, c. 1920 are dressed in the style popular for the period. On the right the dots on this girl's outfit suggest she's a harlequin. On the left, her companion is in a short dress with the dots.

Department stores advertised that customers could purchase their costumes in the store, then return to have their picture taken in the outfit. Most major stores had a photo studio. You can submit images of your ancestors in costume by using the "How to Submit Your Photo" tips in the left hand column.

I've spent the last few years trying to locate images of historic costumes and information on how Halloween was celebrated in the past. This one is from my small collection.

I enjoy browsing the pages of Ancestry.com's Historic Catalog of the Sears, Roebuck and Co. for costumes. Pick a year and the season and start browsing or use "halloween" as a keyword.

If you want to learn more about Halloween in a particular year, try reading the newspaper using GenealogyBank.com. In the advanced searching tab, enter "Halloween" as a word you want to include and then the date. I suggest using a span of days, since not all papers ran holiday related items on October 31st. Most of the advertisements are in the week before that.

Have fun exploring the past using the printed materials that were part of ancestral lives. It's like time traveling using your computer.

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

Season's Greetings

Maureen — Mon, 20 Dec 2010 16:20:14 GMT

Thank you to all the readers of this column for another year of photo mysteries! I have a holiday card for you on my Vimeo channel. You can watch this photo become a colorized greeting.

The photograph, titled "Caught in the Act", is from the Library of Congress. It was taken in 1900. Santa's bag of presents hasn't changed too much—he's carrying dolls and a sailing ship. But I think he's a pretty scary-looking Santa.

I have a holiday habit that drives my family crazy—I take photographs of our Christmas tree. It's a picture time capsule. And I have proof that I'm not the only person who does it: The photo of this tree predates my lifetime.

December 1954 is written in unfamiliar handwriting underneath the image. I'll be watching for that couch and those curtains in other family pictures. This color photo is in serious need of some color correction. All the reds have taken over the image. That's a pretty typical problem with mid-1950s images.

Cynthia Cox sent me this image from her family collection. It's also dated 1954.

She labeled it, "Christmas morning at the Robert and Helen Cox Family Residence, Los Angeles." It was taken on Dec. 25. The doll was her gift and the fire truck was for her brother. Thank you for your submission, Cindy!

We've been photographing holiday traditions for generations. Last December, I explored the tradition of posing with Santa.

You can use the comment section below to tell me what holiday traditions you photograph.

Happy Holidays!