The Photo Detective

This week Maureen Taylor, The Photo Detective, is joined by Danielle Cordovez, who is a senior librarian for the Music and Recorded Sound Division at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. She and Maureen discuss how sound and music are achieved, and why that matters. They discuss how something as simple as a sound recording can show us how a generation speaks, and fill in clues that we may not know about our past. 

Related Episodes:

Episode 137: Using Twitter for a Photo Reunion

Episode 127 Beautiful but Deadly: Toxic Fashion and Criminal Dress

Links:

• Sign up for my newsletter.
• Watch my YouTube Channel.
• Like the Photo Detective Facebook Page so you get notified of my Facebook Live videos.
• Need help organizing your photos? Check out the Essential Photo Organizing Video Course.
• Need help identifying family photos? Check out the Identifying Family Photographs Online Course.
• Have a photo you need help identifying? Sign up for photo consultation.

About My Guest:

Danielle Cordovez is a senior librarian for the Music and Recorded Sound Division at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts – serving as the lead reference and outreach librarian for Recorded Sound. Danielle advocates for patrons to support onsite research, including orientation to collections and discovery tools, and collaborates with branch libraries and partner institutions to create public programming.

About Maureen Taylor:

Maureen is a frequent keynote speaker on photo identification, photograph preservation, and family history at historical and genealogical societies, museums, conferences, libraries, and other organizations across the U.S., London, and Canada.  She’s the author of several books and hundreds of articles and her television appearances include The View and The Today Show (where she researched and presented a complete family tree for host Meredith Vieira).  She’s been featured in The Wall Street Journal, Better Homes and Gardens, The Boston Globe, Martha Stewart Living, Germany’s top newspaper Der Spiegel, American Spirit, and The New York Times. Maureen was recently a spokesperson and photograph expert for MyHeritage.com, an internationally known family history website, and also writes guidebooks, scholarly articles, and online columns for such media as Smithsonian.com. Learn more at Maureentaylor.com

Did you enjoy this episode? Please leave a review on Apple Podcasts

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 more by going to maureentaylor.com and clicking on family photo investigations. 

Support the show

This week Maureen Taylor, the Photo Detective, is joined by Ariel Servadio, from Gaylord Archival, who helps museums and conservation professionals preserve our cultural heritage. Ariel and Ronda Buck developed YourStory™, a collection of the same archival-quality materials professionals use to make it simple for genealogists to preserve their own family history.

Save 25 % on your Gaylord.com purchase with coupon code PD25 

Save $10. on a single photo consult on MaureenTaylor.com with coupon code    podcast

Related Episodes:

Episode 109: Portable Photo Preservation with Shotbox

Episode 103: Collect, Preserve and Share with Collectionaire

Links:

• Sign up for my newsletter.
• Watch my YouTube Channel.
• Like the Photo Detective Facebook Page so you get notified of my Facebook Live videos.
• Need help organizing your photos? Check out the Essential Photo Organizing Video Course.
• Need help identifying family photos? Check out the Identifying Family Photographs Online Course.
• Have a photo you need help identifying? Sign up for photo consultation.

About My Guest:

Ariel Servadio has been working in the preservation industry for over 10 years for Gaylord Archival, helping museums, archives, and conservation professionals to preserve our cultural heritage. She developed YourStory™, a collection of the same archival-quality materials that professionals use, to make it simple for genealogists to preserve their own family history to share with future generations. She has exhibited and presented at NERGC, FGS, and NYG&B conferences.

About Maureen Taylor:

Maureen is a frequent keynote speaker on photo identification, photograph preservation, and family history at historical and genealogical societies, museums, conferences, libraries, and other organizations across the U.S., London, and Canada.  She’s the author of several books and hundreds of articles and her television appearances include The View and The Today Show (where she researched and presented a complete family tree for host Meredith Vieira).  She’s been featured in The Wall Street Journal, Better Homes and Gardens, The Boston Globe, Martha Stewart Living, Germany’s top newspaper Der Spiegel, American Spirit, and The New York Times. Maureen was recently a spokesperson and photograph expert for MyHeritage.com, an internationally known family history website, and also writes guidebooks, scholarly articles, and online columns for such media as Smithsonian.com. Learn more at Maureentaylor.com

Did you enjoy this episode? Please leave a review on Apple Podcasts

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 more by going to maureentaylor.com and clicking on family photo investigations. 

Support the show

This week Maureen Taylor, The Photo Detective, is joined by Amberly Russell, the Preservations Services Manager for the Permanent Legacy Foundation. Permanent is a platform dedicated to allowing individual users to preserve their photos, just as a museum would, through a digital platform. 

Related Episodes:

Episode 95: How to Save Your Family Archive with Permanent.org

Episode 92: What You Need to Know About Metadata with Christopher Desmond of MemoryWeb.me

Links:

• Sign up for my newsletter.
• Watch my YouTube Channel.
• Like the Photo Detective Facebook Page so you get notified of my Facebook Live videos.
• Need help organizing your photos? Check out the Essential Photo Organizing Video Course.
• Need help identifying family photos? Check out the Identifying Family Photographs Online Course.
• Have a photo you need help identifying? Sign up for photo consultation.

About My Guest:

Amberly Russell is a Texas-based archivist and is currently the Preservation Services Manager for Permanent Legacy Foundation.

Amberly brings her lifelong passion as a photographer, videographer, and archivist to her work with clients. She is a United States Army Veteran who earned her Master of Science in Information Studies, Libraries,and Archives from The University of Texas at Austin. Amberly loves hiking, listening to live music, and honing her photography skills in and around Austin, TX.

About Maureen Taylor:

Maureen is a frequent keynote speaker on photo identification, photograph preservation, and family history at historical and genealogical societies, museums, conferences, libraries, and other organizations across the U.S., London, and Canada.  She’s the author of several books and hundreds of articles and her television appearances include The View and The Today Show (where she researched and presented a complete family tree for host Meredith Vieira).  She’s been featured in The Wall Street Journal, Better Homes and Gardens, The Boston Globe, Martha Stewart Living, Germany’s top newspaper Der Spiegel, American Spirit, and The New York Times. Maureen was recently a spokesperson and photograph expert for MyHeritage.com, an internationally known family history website, and also writes guidebooks, scholarly articles, and online columns for such media as Smithsonian.com. Learn more at Maureentaylor.com

Did you enjoy this episode? Please leave a review on Apple Podcasts.

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 more by going to maureentaylor.com and clicking on family photo investigations. 

Support the show

Maureen Taylor, The Photo Detective, is back with her monthly “Ask Maureen” series in which she answers questions submitted by her followers about photos and photo-related items.

In this month’s episode, Maureen tackles:

• How to donate material to an archive
• Should you keep the folios that come with photos
• Researching a photo mystery from Moldavia
• … and more!

Give the episode a listen and find out the answers to these questions.

Related Episodes:

Episode 156 Ask Maureen November 2021

Episode 152: Ask Maureen October 2021

Links:

• Sign up for my newsletter.
• Watch my YouTube Channel.
• Like the Photo Detective Facebook Page so you get notified of my Facebook Live videos.
• Need help organizing your photos? Check out the Essential Photo Organizing Video Course.
• Need help identifying family photos? Check out the Identifying Family Photographs Online Course.
• Have a photo you need help identifying? Sign up for photo consultation.

About Maureen Taylor:

Maureen is a frequent keynote speaker on photo identification, photograph preservation, and family history at historical and genealogical societies, museums, conferences, libraries, and other organizations across the U.S., London, and Canada.  She’s the author of several books and hundreds of articles and her television appearances include The View and The Today Show (where she researched and presented a complete family tree for host Meredith Vieira).  She’s been featured in The Wall Street Journal, Better Homes and Gardens, The Boston Globe, Martha Stewart Living, Germany’s top newspaper Der Spiegel, American Spirit, and The New York Times. Maureen was recently a spokesperson and photograph expert for MyHeritage.com, an internationally known family history website, and also writes guidebooks, scholarly articles, and online columns for such media as Smithsonian.com. Learn more at Maureentaylor.com,

Did you enjoy this episode? Please leave a review on Apple Podcasts

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 more by going to maureentaylor.com and clicking on family photo investigations. 

Support the show

This week, I take a look back on my most popular podcast episode from the past year. I’m joined by David Wood, the curator of the Concord Museum in Concord Massachusetts since 1985. 

David and I talk about the exhibits from the museum, and how some leave lasting impressions, not only on the community but in the history that it’s taken part in telling. We also discuss what it means to see history, not only as an adult, but also as a child, and how understanding how we look at history can help foster a deeper love in the exhibits we see and also show to our audiences.

It’s a fascinating look at curation, history exploration, and understanding how moments in history can continue to affect us, even after they’ve long since happened. 

It doesn’t take hindsight to realize you’re living in historic times. This last year has taught us that.  This week’s guest, David Wood, told me that residents of Lexington and Concord immediately recognized the significance of April 19, 1775, and saved pieces to document that day. A few years ago, the Concord Museum in Concord, Massachusetts assembled a temporary exhibit called The Shot Heard Round the World.  It was an amazing display of ordinary and extraordinary bits of history.  Now they’ve created a permanent exhibit of the same name. It’s one of my favorite museums but don’t worry if you can’t travel to see it. Their website is worth exploring.  Concord Museum was the first cultural institution to be officially recognized by the U.S. Semiquincentennial Commission for this “Shot Heard Round the World” microsite. We’ve plenty of time before the 250th celebration in 2026.   

Related Episodes:

Episode 49: Women Patriots with Mary Tedesco

Episode 79: The American Revolution and Abraham Lincoln

Links:

• Concord Museum
• A Revolutionary Trio
• Sign up for my newsletter.
• Watch my YouTube Channel.
• Like the Photo Detective Facebook Page so you get notified of my Facebook Live videos.
• Need help organizing your photos? Check out the Essential Photo Organizing Video Course.
• Need help identifying family photos? Check out the Identifying Family Photographs Online Course.
• Have a photo you need help identifying? Sign up for photo consultation.

About My Guest:

David F. Wood has been a Curator at the Concord Museum since 1985. He has published The Concord Museum: Decorative Arts from a New England Collection and An Observant Eye: The Thoreau Collection at the Concord Museum, which won the American Association of State and Local History Leadership in History Award and the Historic New England Honor Book award for 2007. He has also published a variety of other articles regarding cabinetmaking and clock-making in Concord, Massachusetts

About Maureen Taylor:

Maureen is a frequent keynote speaker on photo identification, photograph preservation, and family history at historical and genealogical societies, museums, conferences, libraries, and other organizations across the U.S., London and Canada.  She’s the author of several books and hundreds of articles and her television appearances in

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 more by going to maureentaylor.com and clicking on family photo investigations. 

Support the show

I’m joined by Christopher Donovan, the head of the Providence, Rhode Island chapter of Pecha Kucha (don’t worry – we discuss how to pronounce it during the episode). 

Pecha Kucha is a storytelling device that pairs twenty slides, chocked full of images, within twenty seconds. It’s a race to captivate your audience, all while engaging in visual storytelling and is incredibly fun. Christopher and I also discuss what goes into making a Pecha Kucha, with Maureen having done her first just before the global pandemic put us into lockdown, and Christopher being a regular at hosting and presenting.  

This short-form storytelling format is perfect for sharing small bits of family history. Try it and share it with me. 

The Providence Pecha Kucha chapter has been the longest-running Pecha Kucha chapter in the world, second only to its origin in Japan, while currently on a hiatus, they will return in Spring 2022 with their 150th show. 

Related Episodes:

Episode 98: Collect Photo Stories with StoryGlory

Episode 132: The Wedding Detectives with Charlotte Sibtain and Cole Moreton

Links:

• We Are Here
• Lost and Found
• Bennie’s Bamboo Bonanza
• Sign up for my newsletter.
• Watch my YouTube Channel.
• Like the Photo Detective Facebook Page so you get notified of my Facebook Live videos.
• Need help organizing your photos? Check out the Essential Photo Organizing Video Course.
• Need help identifying family photos? Check out the Identifying Family Photographs Online Course.
• Have a photo you need help identifying? Sign up for photo consultation.

About My Guest:

Chris Donovan believes that effective storytelling positively transforms the hearts and minds of those around us. With a decade of experience as a stage manager in the performing arts, he stays behind the scenes creating seamless experiences that keep the ’magic‘ in the spotlight, while hiding all of the nitty-gritty details ’behind the curtains‘. Since 2017 he has been the city organizer for the Providence PechaKucha Nights, where members of the community share their stories using the PechaKucha format of 20 images that each last 20 seconds. PechaKucha PVD was named ‘Best Event in Providence, 2020’ by the RI Monthly Readers Poll, and is globally recognized as the second-longest consecutive running PechaKucha Night in the world.

About Maureen Taylor:

Maureen is a frequent keynote speaker on photo identification, photograph preservation, and family history at historical and genealogical societies, museums, conferences, libraries, and other organizations across the U.S., London and Canada.  She’s the author of several books and hundreds of articles and her television appearances include The View and The Today Show (where she researched and presented a complete family tree for host Meredith Vieira).  She’s been featured in The Wall Street Journal, Better Homes and Gardens, The Boston Globe, Martha Stewart Li

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 more by going to maureentaylor.com and clicking on family photo investigations. 

Support the show

This week, The Photo Detective, Maureen Taylor, takes a look back at one of her favorite podcast episodes from the past year as she examines VintageAerial.com, a project dedicated to chronicling the rural areas of the United States. 

Maureen is joined by Fritz Byers, President, and CEO of VintageAerial.com, and Lance Roper of Customer Engagement as they discuss the need for preserving these areas and how the site has become dedicated to chronicling over 18 million images, all available for public use.

Related Episodes:

Episode 108: Researching the Ships of Our Ancestors

Episode 84: U.S. Naval Collections: Online Resources You Can Use

Links:

• VintageAerial.com
• Sign up for my newsletter.
• Watch my YouTube Channel.
• Like the Photo Detective Facebook Page so you get notified of my Facebook Live videos.
• Need help organizing your photos? Check out the Essential Photo Organizing Video Course.
• Need help identifying family photos? Check out the Identifying Family Photographs Online Course.
• Have a photo you need help identifying? Sign up for photo consultation.

About My Guest:

My guests are Lance Roper of Customer Engagement and Fritz Byers, President, and CEO of VintageAerial.com

About Maureen Taylor:

Maureen is a frequent keynote speaker on photo identification, photograph preservation, and family history at historical and genealogical societies, museums, conferences, libraries, and other organizations across the U.S., London, and Canada.  She’s the author of several books and hundreds of articles and her television appearances include The View and The Today Show (where she researched and presented a complete family tree for host Meredith Vieira).  She’s been featured in The Wall Street Journal, Better Homes and Gardens, The Boston Globe, Martha Stewart Living, Germany’s top newspaper Der Spiegel, American Spirit, and The New York Times. Maureen was recently a spokesperson and photograph expert for MyHeritage.com, an internationally known family history website, and also writes guidebooks, scholarly articles, and online columns for such media as Smithsonian.com. Learn more at Maureentaylor.com

Did you enjoy this episode? Please leave a review on Apple Podcasts.

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 more by going to maureentaylor.com and clicking on family photo investigations. 

Support the show

In this bonus episode, I’m joined by Emma Kilburn-Smith, a mixed-media artist and graduate student who lives in Calgary. Emma made a controversial splash on the social media platform TikTok when she began sharing her work taking vintage photos and embroidering onto them. 

Her passion for her work is astounding, and while many were worried at the idea of embroidering onto these photos, Emma makes certain that they tell the stories of the people she finds and helps to bring attention to these orphan photos in order to give them new life. 

Related Episodes:

Episode 135: Stitch by Stitch Saving Historic Clothing a Piece at a time

Episode 155: Ancestral Handbag History with Curator Jessica Harpley

Links:

• Stitchography by Emma
• Sign up for my newsletter.
• Watch my YouTube Channel.
• Like the Photo Detective Facebook Page so you get notified of my Facebook Live videos.
• Need help organizing your photos? Check out the Essential Photo Organizing Video Course.
• Need help identifying family photos? Check out the Identifying Family Photographs Online Course.
• Have a photo you need help identifying? Sign up for photo consultation.

About My Guest:

Emma is a mixed media artist and graduate student living in Calgary, Alberta. Her academic research into photo animation technologies (like DeepNostalgia) helps to inform her vibrant creative practice as an artist who embroiders on vintage found photos. With a background in journalism, her passion for the artistic medium is rooted in her curiosity for the people and the stories revealed in the photographs that she finds.

About Maureen Taylor:

Maureen is a frequent keynote speaker on photo identification, photograph preservation, and family history at historical and genealogical societies, museums, conferences, libraries, and other organizations across the U.S., London and Canada.  She’s the author of several books and hundreds of articles and her television appearances include
The View
and
 The Today Show
 (where she researched and presented a complete family tree for host Meredith Vieira).  She’s been featured in
The Wall Street Journal, Better Homes and Gardens, The Boston Globe, Martha Stewart Living
, Germany’s top newspaper
Der Spiegel
,
American Spirit,
 and
The New York Times
. Maureen was recently a spokesperson and photograph expert for MyHeritage.com, an internationally known family history website and also writes guidebooks, scholarly articles and online columns for such media as Smithsonian.com. Learn more at Maureentaylor.com

Did you enjoy this episode? Please leave a review on Apple Podcasts

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 more by going to maureentaylor.com and clicking on family photo investigations. 

Support the show

Maureen Taylor, The Photo Detective, is back with her monthly “Ask Maureen” series in which she answers questions submitted by her followers about photos and photo-related items.

In this month’s episode, Maureen tackles:

• How to tell if a painting frame is old, new, or important
• How to store and preserve glass slides
• How to scan in images with low resolution
• What lantern slides are
• … and more!

Give the episode a listen and find out the answers to these questions. Join Maureen on her Facebook at the end of every month to submit your questions and have them answered. 

Related Episodes:

Episode 147: Ask Maureen September 2021

Episode 143: Ask Maureen August 2021

Links:

• Modern Day Antique
• How to Tell If a Frame is an Antique
• Sign up for my newsletter.
• Watch my YouTube Channel.
• Like the Photo Detective Facebook Page so you get notified of my Facebook Live videos.
• Need help organizing your photos? Check out the Essential Photo Organizing Video Course.
• Need help identifying family photos? Check out the Identifying Family Photographs Online Course.
• Have a photo you need help identifying? Sign up for photo consultation.

About Maureen Taylor:

Maureen is a frequent keynote speaker on photo identification, photograph preservation, and family history at historical and genealogical societies, museums, conferences, libraries, and other organizations across the U.S., London, and Canada.  She’s the author of several books and hundreds of articles and her television appearances include The View and The Today Show (where she researched and presented a complete family tree for host Meredith Vieira).  She’s been featured in The Wall Street Journal, Better Homes and Gardens, The Boston Globe, Martha Stewart Living, Germany’s top newspaper Der Spiegel, American Spirit, and The New York Times. Maureen was recently a spokesperson and photograph expert for MyHeritage.com, an internationally known family history website, and also writes guidebooks, scholarly articles, and online columns for such media as Smithsonian.com. Learn more at Maureentaylor.com,

Did you enjoy this episode? Please leave a review on Apple Podcasts.

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 more by going to maureentaylor.com and clicking on family photo investigations. 

Support the show

This week, Maureen Taylor, The Photo Detective, is joined by Jessica Rose Harpley, an Assistant Curator at The Victoria and Albert Museum in London. Specifically, Jessica works in the Department of Performance, Furniture, and Textiles. 

Maureen and Jessica discuss one of Victoria and Albert’s latest exhibits which Jessica helped curate. Called, “Bags: Inside Out” the exhibit examines the role that bags, be it handbags, briefcases, and yes, the Queen’s tiny purses are mentioned, and what role they have played throughout the centuries in regards to fashion. From frivolousness to practicality, this episode looks at these accessories and how a single item can tell a very interesting story about the individual holding it. 

Related Episodes:

Episode 132: The Wedding Detectives Charlotte Sibtain and Cole Moreton

Episode 119: Dressing for the Camera: Rules Our Foremothers Followed and Sometimes Broke

Links:

• Bags Inside Out Exhibit at the Victoria and Albert Museum
• Sign up for my newsletter.
• Watch my YouTube Channel.
• Like the Photo Detective Facebook Page so you get notified of my Facebook Live videos.
• Need help organizing your photos? Check out the Essential Photo Organizing Video Course.
• Need help identifying family photos? Check out the Identifying Family Photographs Online Course.
• Have a photo you need help identifying? Sign up for photo consultation.

About My Guest:

Jessica Rose Harpley is an Assistant Curator at The Victoria and Albert Museum in London, England, within The Department of Performance, Furniture, Textiles, and Fashion, having formerly worked within The Costume and Textile Department at Norwich Castle Museum. Jessica has a Master’s degree in Fashion Cultures from The London College of Fashion, and has published on the chatelaine, exploring their use and representation within Victorian Britain. She has specific interests in the nineteenth and early twentieth century, including gender theory and the construction of the self via dress; and, the dissemination and representation of fashion, most notably through women’s periodicals.

About Maureen Taylor:

Maureen is a frequent keynote speaker on photo identification, photograph preservation, and family history at historical and genealogical societies, museums, conferences, libraries, and other organizations across the U.S., London, and Canada.  She’s the author of several books and hundreds of articles and her television appearances include The View and The Today Show (where she researched and presented a complete family tree for host Meredith Vieira).  She’s been featured in The Wall Street Journal, Better Homes and Gardens, The Boston Globe, Martha Stewart Living, Germany’s top newspaper Der Spiegel, American Spirit, and The New York Times. Maureen was recently a spokesperson and photograph expert for MyHeritage.com, an internationally known family history website, and also writes guidebooks, scholarly articles, and online columns for such media as Smithsonian

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 more by going to maureentaylor.com and clicking on family photo investigations. 

Support the show