The Photo Detective

You won't believe what Civil War historian, Kurt Luther,  has created.  Civil War Photo Sleuth is a gathering place for images and information. I'm thrilled to be offering something new. Photo investigations. These collaborative one-on-one sessions. Look at your family photos then you and I meet to discuss your mystery images. And find out how each clue and hint might contribute to your famil...

Christopher Desmond of MemoryWeb joined me for another episode of my podcast to share their big news.  MemoryWeb is now available for Android's and for your desktop.  They'll be rolling out improvements to these versions so that functionality will eventually match what's available through their IOS app. I'm thrilled to be offering something new. Photo investigations. These collabora...

A few weeks ago, I interviewed author Paul Collins, The Literary Detective, about his new book, Blood and Ivy: The 1849 Murder that Scandalized Harvard.  It has a connection to a photo I found. Really!  I'm a huge fan of his.   Listen in and find out why. I'm thrilled to be offering something new. Photo investigations. These collaborative one-on-one sessions. Look at your family photos then y...

Brenda of the Gravestone Girls was on recently to talk about all things relating to gravestones and their preservation work.  We also chat about postmortem images. I'm thrilled to be offering something new. Photo investigations. These collaborative one-on-one sessions. Look at your family photos then you and I meet to discuss your mystery images. And find out how each clue and hint might contribut...

If you’re like me, then you have photographs or scans of documents that can use a little touch-up. Vivid-Pix’s Restore software makes that easy. No more complicated solutions. Upload a picture to the software and quickly correct color, contrast, and brightness. I'm thrilled to be offering something new. Photo investigations. These collaborative one-on-one sessions. Look at your family photos then...

A trip to the local outdoor flea market taught me a few things about how non-genealogists feel about pictures. Today my guest is Shannon Uschold of GenerationStory, a free iOS and desktop app to help you save the stories of family artifacts. She released the GenerationStory app in 2015. I'm thrilled to be offering something new. Photo investigations. These collaborative one-on-one sessions. Look a...

A story about one woman's photo discovery at Goodwill made the news. It made me think about the photo terminology you see online. What's a found photo? What's an orphan photo? I gave these questions a lot of thought and came up with an opinion. Listen in and let me know if you agree. I'm thrilled to be offering something new. Photo investigations. These collaborative one-on-one sess...

My daughter's teary eyes at discovering a tossed photo were the inspiration for a recent blog post, "Let's Stop Trashing Family Photos".  It struck a nerve with my readers too.  My inbox and FB page were flooded with responses. Listen to their emails in this edition of The Photo Detective. I'm thrilled to be offering something new. Photo investigations. These collaborative one-...

Just about anything can be listed on eBay. In this episode of The Photo Detective, you'll learn how to search for family materials and how to set up an alert so you'll never miss a "lost" family item. I'm thrilled to be offering something new. Photo investigations. These collaborative one-on-one sessions. Look at your family photos then you and I meet to discuss your mystery im...

If you've ever wondered how to connect all your family photos with your genealogy, then you need to listen to this episode of The Photo Detective Podcast. My guest is Christopher Desmond of Memory Web . Memory Web syncs to Google Drive, Dropbox, Instagram, FamilySearch, Facebook, and Flickr making it easy to transfer your photos to the sites you're using to connect. A new desktop version...

https://player.vimeo.com/video/261036540 A listener, Deborah Stock,  asked me to talk about how to find family photos. There are photos everywhere from genealogical databases, to books. There is no quick way to search for photos online. It takes time and methodology. Tips Try making a list for each ancestor. Where they lived? Where they worked? Their activities. Then search for pictures based on t...

In this episode of The Photo Detective, Julianna Szucs of Ancestry.com explains how to search this mega genealogy site.  She covers general search strategies, global searches, category searches as well as how to find what you need in individual collections.  My personal favorite tip is how to use three different types of wildcard searches.  I guarantee this episode will change how you use Ancestry...

Tara Bergeson of FamilySearch.org joined me to talk about RootsTech 2018.  They have an outstanding line-up of events including a Wednesday night opening of the Expo Hall, a celebration of the Greatest Generation, and "My Family, Mi Herencia", a Luz de Las Naciones production on Saturday evening. The deadline for the Photo & Story Competition is now January 19, 2018. Old photos or ne...

Daniel Horowitz of MyHeritage was my guest this month. We did a demo of one of the really cool features of their instant discoveries option. You upload photos to your MyHeritage.com family tree website and then the matching happens. It sounds complicated and technical but follow along as Daniel and I discuss how to get the most out of your Premium Plus or Complete MyHeritage.com subscription. I lo...

I had the opportunity to interview Beth Forester of https://animoto.com where we discussed the power of video and family history. I'm thrilled to be offering something new. Photo investigations. These collaborative one-on-one sessions. Look at your family photos then you and I meet to discuss your mystery images. And find out how each clue and hint might contribute to your family history. Find out...

In this episode we take a look at how I use Animoto to create family history and house history videos. I give a live photo consult on a picture submitted by a viewer, then I discuss scanning tintypes. I'm thrilled to be offering something new. Photo investigations. These collaborative one-on-one sessions. Look at your family photos then you and I meet to discuss your mystery images. And find out h...

In this episode of Ask Maureen, Maureen Taylor, the Photo Detective, shares: What do you see in a photo? Photo Preservation Tips Next Month I have a big surprise. A new class. It's in response to the survey many of my readers participated in. Listen in on Extreme Genes to a discussion on houses in photos and on their new Patreon site for a discussion of Reverse Genealogy and Photographs. Than...

In this episode of Ask Maureen, Maureen Taylor, The Photo Detective, shares information about a new resource from Google, in partnership with museums around the world, called We Wear Culture. It is an amazing resource dedicated to 3,000 years of world fashion. Then, as we prepare for the upcoming solar eclipse, Maureen shares a glimpse back to a 1923 Solar Eclipse and gives a few helpful tips on p...

In this episode Maureen unravels threads of a complex photo mystery that involves two orphan photos taken nearly 50 years apart and newspaper clippings spanning 16 years all discovered together in one frame. She also weighs in on the recent Amelia Earhart photo mystery.  If you are curious how a photo consult works, this episode of Ask Maureen provides a glimpse behind the curtain to see what Maur...

In this episode of Ask Maureen, Maureen gives some great tips and points the way to some great resources, including some recent podcast appearances. What do you do with that box of photos with no names?  How do you scan originals vs. slide copies? How should you deal with old black paper photo albums? Plus, you are invited to help The Photo Detective by participating in a survey about photo ID  pr...

Lantern Slides ~ What are they and what were they used for? And an example of lantern slides. Metadata - What is metadata? How do we use it for photo organizing and preserving family history? Keep a list of keywords Electronic properties Best practices and good behavior for posting and sharing photos online Watermarking photos Ethical photo sharing I'm thrilled to be offering something new. Photo...

After a dozen years of searching, there are still new photographs popping up. These men and women experienced the Revolutionary War period and lived long enough to be photographed.  Do you have one in your collection?  Listen in to learn more about The Last Muster project. How did this project start? How many photographs have I found? Were there any surprises along the way? Why aren't there m...

Ask Maureen Facebook Live events are your chance to ask your photo related questions.  Think about your number one concern. Is it unidentified images? Preserving photos? Organizing them for the next generation? Or maybe you want to know more about sharing pictures.  Go ahead and ask. I'm listening.  You can submit your question here.  Here are this month's answers to questions from follo...

What to do if you don't have very many old photos of your family? How can you find more photos from your ancestors? Orphan Photos ~ instant ancestors and how to start identifying the photographs even though they are not your ancestors. Tin Types ~ What to do first to identify them? How to put photos on to Ancestry.com and link it to a specific person? Photos on Fabric Locating more informatio...

I held my first Facebook Live event on January 26th. In this episode, I answered some questions submitted by my readers. How did I get started as the Photo Detective? How do I tell two people apart in photos? Is it possible to identify a geographic location (state/nation) (with reasonable accuracy) based on clothing? A reader wrote: "My grandmother was wearing the same clothes styles/clothes...