Family Photo Detective

Historical family photos are cherished heirlooms that offer a glimpse into the lives of our ancestors. But the images, and the stories behind them, often fade away as decades pass--the who, when, where, and why behind the photos are lost. In this book, photo identification expert and genealogist Maureen A. Taylor shows you how to study the clues in your old family photos to put names to faces and recapture their lost stories.

Unlock the Secrets of Your Old Family Photos! Historical family photos are cherished heirlooms that offer a glimpse into the lives of our ancestors. But the images, and the stories behind them, often fade away as decades pass - the who, when, where and why behind the photos are lost. In this book, photo identification expert and genealogist Maureen A. Taylor shows you how to study the clues in your old family photos to put names to faces and recapture their lost stories. Inside, you'll learn how to: • Determine the type of image you have - from common paper prints to stereographs to historical daguerreotypes, ambrotypes, and tintypes • Use clothing, accessories, and hairstyles to date the image in the correct decade • Research photographer's imprints to narrow down when and where the photo was taken • Compare facial features in multiple photos to confirm identity and family resemblance • Interview family members to gather more information about the image • Identify props in the photo to create context for the image Each chapter includes dozens of historical photos to illustrate key points and provide clear examples. Charts, timelines and resource lists make it easy to find the exact information you need. Dozens of case studies show you how to apply the techniques in the book to real-life photo research projects. The answers to your family photo questions are closer than you think. Let this book help you start finding them today.

Learn to preserve your precious family photographs so that friends and loved ones can enjoy them for years to come. Taylor outlines straightforward steps that add value to your home collection, using methods that conservators and photo curators use every day.

A storm-struck island. A blood-soaked bed. A missing man. In this captivating mystery that's perfect for fans of Knives Out, Senior Investigator Shana Merchant discovers that murder is a family affair. Thirteen months ago, former NYPD detective Shana Merchant barely survived being abducted by a serial killer. Now hoping to leave grisly murder cases behind, she's taken a job in her fiancé's sleepy hometown in the Thousand Islands region of Upstate New York. But as a nor'easter bears down on her new territory, Shana and fellow investigator Tim Wellington receive a call about a man missing on a private island. Shana and Tim travel to the isolated island owned by the wealthy Sinclair family to question the witnesses. They arrive to find blood on the scene and a house full of Sinclair family and friends on edge. While Tim guesses they're dealing with a runaway case, Shana is convinced that they have a murder on their hands. As the gale intensifies outside, she starts conducting interviews and discovers the Sinclairs and their guests are crawling with dark and dangerous secrets. Trapped on the island by the raging storm with only Tim whose reliability is thrown into question, the increasingly restless suspects, and her own trauma-fueled flashbacks for company, Shana will have to trust the one person her abduction destroyed her faith in--herself. But time is ticking down, because if Shana's right, a killer is in their midst and as the pressure mounts, so do the odds that they'll strike again.

This collection of images assigns faces to an un-illustrated war and tells the stories of our nation's Founding Fathers and Mothers. It is a much-needed contribution to the history of the American Revolution, the history of the early Republic, and the history of photography.

Finalist for the Gilder Lehrman Lincoln Prize A landmark and collectible volume—beautifully produced in duotone—that canonizes Frederick Douglass through historic photography. Commemorating the bicentennial of Frederick Douglass’s birthday and featuring images discovered since its original publication in 2015, this “tour de force” (Library Journal, starred review) reintroduced Frederick Douglass to a twenty-first-century audience. From these pages—which include over 160 photographs of Douglass, as well as his previously unpublished writings and speeches on visual aesthetics—we learn that neither Custer nor Twain, nor even Abraham Lincoln, was the most photographed American of the nineteenth century. Indeed, it was Frederick Douglass, the ex-slave-turned-abolitionist, eloquent orator, and seminal writer, who is canonized here as a leading pioneer in photography and a prescient theorist who believed in the explosive social power of what was then just an emerging art form. Featuring: Contributions from Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and Kenneth B. Morris, Jr. (a direct Douglass descendent) 160 separate photographs of Douglass—many of which have never been publicly seen and were long lost to history A collection of contemporaneous artwork that shows how powerful Douglass’s photographic legacy remains today, over a century after his death All Douglass’s previously unpublished writings and speeches on visual aesthetics

Recover the stories of long-overlooked American women who, at a time when women rarely worked outside the home, became commercial photographers and shaped the new, challenging medium. Covering two generations of photographers ranging from New York City to California's mining districts, this study goes beyond a broad survey and explores individual careers through primary sources and new materials. Profiles of the photographers animate their careers by exploring how they began, the details of running their own studios, and their visual output. The featured photos vary in form--daguerreotype, tintype, carte de visite, and more--and subject, including Civil War portraits, postmortem photography, and landscape photography. This welcome resource fills in gaps in photographic, American, and women's history and convincingly lays out the parallels between the growth of photography as an available medium and the late-19th-century women's movement.

Contains hundreds of pictures which should help with establishing the date within a few years. Features an introductory essay by renowned old-photograph expert Maureen Taylor, and sections on unusual pictures and hand-tinted photos. A number of books have already been published that describe how to date old photographs. They rely almost entirely on descriptions: More Dating Old Photographs are almost all reproductions of old photographs of known date. Contains over 650 pictures covering the period from the 1840s to the 1920s. By comparing your unknown pictures to those in our book, you will be able to compare clothing and hair fashion, the poses adopted by the subject and the background settings. The book provides convincing evidence that our ancestors were at least as fashion conscious as we are today and that those fashions changed just as frequently. T3034HB - $15.95

Contains hundreds of pictures which should help with establishing the date within a few years. F0008HB - $12.00

Finding Family: My Search for Roots is Richard Hill's true and intensely personal story of an adoptee trying to reclaim the biological family denied him by sealed birth records.