Photo Detective with Maureen A. Taylor - organizations

Spotlight on Family Health History--The Photo Side

Maureen — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 15:59:42 GMT

There was a very interesting story about Pio Pico, California's last governor under Mexico, in the July 19 Los Angeles Times. "What made Pio Pico so, well, ugly?" focuses not on the political happenings of his administration, but on how a daguerreotype of him helped identify a medical condition. It's fascinating!

A neurologist compared a daguerreotype of Pico taken in 1852 with a painting of him from 1847 and another photograph from 1858. This doctor believes Pico had a condition called acromegaly, a pituitary tumor that caused his face to become mishapen. The pictorial evidence showed when he first became afflicted and when the pituitary tumor stopped growing. It's a great family photo tale.

I've received several photographs from readers of individuals with obvious medical conditions or dental problems. I'm busy tracking down the clues in those images—he evidence in those photos may be pertinent to the owners' own health history.

If you have a medically related photograph, e-mail it to me. I'd love to see it.

The Mütter Museum was founded by the College of Physicans of Philadelphia to help educate physicians. While their digital database currently contains images only of doctors, according to their Web site, the picture collection "contains images from the history of medicine, including portraits, buildings, groups, and historical subjects." A photo book, Mutter Museum Historic Medical Photographs (Blast Books, $50) is available. Be prepared: Some of the images are disturbing.

Fraternal Insignia

Maureen — Mon, 19 May 2008 15:56:14 GMT

Linda Matthews was just one of the people who answered my call for pictures of ancestors in fraternal uniforms. She inherited this wonderful photo of her cousin Carl Lager.

Carl was born April 23, 1854, in Sweden, and died Feb. 15, 1935, in Henry County, Ill. According to a short biography of him in the three-volume History of Swedes in Illinois (published in 1908 and available on Google Book Search), he was a Mason, a Knight Templar, an Odd Fellow, a Knight of Pythias and a Mystic Shriner.

He also was a Major in the Patriarchs Miiltant, the uniformed branch of the Odd Fellows. Matthews wondered about his uniform in this photo and suggested it's Patriarchs Militant attire.

She's right. The three interlocking rings is the symbol for the Odd Fellows while the symbol on his hat identifies the specific group within the organization.

You'll find photos of the insignia on his hat online .

FGS Conference Roundup

Maureen — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 17:12:50 GMT

Last week I attended the Federation of Genealogical Societies conference in Fort Wayne Indiana and saw lots of folks who told me they regularly read this blog. Thank you!! The content of this space is determined (in part) by the photos and comments you post to the Photo Detective Forum. Keep the ideas coming!

At my lecture on "Genealogical Clues in Family Photographs", many of the attendees said they posted family photos on DeadFred.com in the hope of reuniting with "lost" family members. Dead Fred is probably the oldest photo reunion site on the Web.

If you haven't taken a look at what's in that online archive, you might be overlooking a valuable resource. Thousands of people search for family photos every week.

One of the new kids on the block is a site called WeRelate, a collaborative venture with the Allen County Public Library. WeRelate is a wiki, which means anyone can add content and edit pages. Think of it as a type of social networking site for genealogists.

WeRelate lets users to upload gedcom files and documents. I particularly like the feature that lets you upload and annotate images. You can find out if any members of your family are participating by going to the WeRelate Web site and searching for your family surnames.