The Photo Detective

At Rootstech 2021 myself, Nancy and Christopher Desmond of MemoryWeb.me presented a three-part class on unlocking the shoebox of photos.  I love partnering with those two. They have a passion for genealogy and photography. 

Thousands of people watched our class and asked questions about the topic. There were so many queries we decided to do a dedicated Q & A webinar. This is a recording of that event. 

 By the way…the class is still live and will be until 2022. We offered a show special that is still live as well. An opportunity to watch Getting Started with Digital Photo Organizing and subscribe to MemoryWeb. The Links are in the show notes. 

Recap of Unlocking the Shoebox. 

• Would you rather have me scan the actual eight by 10 photo or the negative of that photo?
• How to scan slides
• What should we do with black paper albums?
• How can I tell cased images apart?
• How can I research a photographer?
• I have multiple backups of my photos organized and stored on my computer and external drives. Why would I put these on the cloud?
• What’s the best way to digitize and include metadata?
• What type of portable, external hard drive would you recommend for a Mac book pro

Related Episodes:

Episode 69: Digital Photo Organizing with MemoryWeb 

Episode 92: What You Need to Know About Metadata with Christopher Desmond

Links:

• Unlocking the Shoebox: The Class
• Unlocking the Shoebox Digital Photo Organizing Special
• 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:

Nancy and Christopher Desmond are the founders and creators of MemoryWeb.me a digital photo organizer

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

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

Included are ambrotypes, daguerreotypes, glass negatives, tin types, cabinet cards, photo postcards, photo strips, photomatics, and snapshots – over 100 years of social history and the development of photography.

Related Episodes:

Episode 116: America and the Tintype with Steven Kasher

Episode 99: Finding Photographs on the Smithsonian Learning Lab

Links:

• Interview with Hugh Nini and Neal Treadwell
• 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:

Hugh Nini and Neal Treadwell are the authors of LOVING A Photographic History and the owners of the Nini-Treadwell Collection which consists of over 3000 photographs of men in love. The Washington Post, Rolling Stone, CNN, and Vogue featured reviews of their book. 

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

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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

Take one wedding photo, add some research and you’ll end up with quite the story. That’s the premise behind The Wedding Detectives on BBC Radio 4. Charlotte Sibtain was on The Photo Detective back in episode 44 vintage Wedding Photos.  I discovered Charlotte’s Instagram feed and so did reporter Cole Moreton. Together they uncover the tales behind what on the surface look like ordinary wedding images.  Murder and mayhem are just one of the stories they found. You don’t have to live in the UK to listen to their program. My fingers are crossed the series gets expanded. Let’s help them by tuning in via the web. Link in the show notes. 

Related Episodes:

Episode 44: Vintage Wedding Photos

Episode 98: Collect Photo Stories with StoryGlory

Links:

• The Wedding Detectives
• Vintage Wedding Photos on Instagram
• 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:

Charlotte Sibtain is a London-based social researcher who collects vintage wedding photos and then reunites them where possible with the families. She is also the co-host of the popular BBC Radio 4 series, ‘The Wedding Detectives’.

Cole Moreton is a writer and broadcaster exploring who we are and what we believe in. His BBC Radio 4 series The Boy Who Gave His Heart Away won Audio Moment of the Year at the Arias and Best Writing at the World’s Best Radio Awards in New York. He also contributes to Pause for Thought on BBC Radio 2. Cole was named as Interviewer of the Year at the Press Awards for his work with the Mail on Sunday and also writes for other titles including The Guardian and the i. He is the author of five books including Hungry for Home, which was shortlisted alongside Zadie Smith’s White Teeth for the prestigious John Llewelyn Rhys Prize for first book of any kind. An East Ender by birth, he now lives by the sea.

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

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

The fight for racial equality in the nineteenth century played out not only in marches and political conventions but also in the print and visual culture created and disseminated throughout the United States by African Americans.  Producing printed and photographic images for activists that advanced their campaigns for black rights. 

Related Episodes:

Episode 101: Rediscovering an American Community of Color 

Episode 120: Good Pictures: Amateur Photography and Our Family with Art Historian Kim Beil

Links:

• African American Visual Culture in the 19th Century: An Online Lecture for the New York Historical Society
• 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:

Dr. Aston Gonzalez is a historian of African American culture and politics during the long nineteenth century. He is an associate professor of History at Salisbury University. Before teaching in Maryland, he completed a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship through the Library Company of Philadelphia’s Program in African American History and a Ford Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship.

The University of North Carolina Press published his first book, Visualizing Equality: African American Rights and Visual Culture in the Nineteenth Century, in September 2020. He has published articles about African American portraiture during the Early Republic, picturing Black citizenship during the Civil War, the creation of African American archives, the visual representations of escaped slaves, and the visual production of free Black abolitionists.

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

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

Each month Maureen answers questions from listeners. 

• When scanning cabinet cards, do you only do one scan of the entire front of the card which would include the border & photographer logo, or do you also make a 2nd scan of just the photo itself?
• Carol asked: I have a picture of my GG grandmother (1829-1901).  She is elderly in the picture & wearing small hoop earrings.  It appears that her ears are pierced.  Was it common in the 1800s for an older woman to have pierced ears?  Did they go out of fashion in the twentieth century?
• Does MyHeritage own my photos when I upload them?
• What archival safe pen/pencils do you recommend for labeling heritage images?

It’s important to download documents or sync them to your tree when you locate them online.  What’s on a genealogy site today doesn’t mean it will be there tomorrow.   

• Do Ambrotypes fade when exposed to light?
• Karen asks: My great-grandmother in a professional photo with her husband and oldest child has rings on her left middle finger. Was that common in 1910?

It’s important to download documents or sync them to your tree when you locate them online.  What’s on a genealogy site today doesn’t mean it will be there tomorrow?  Thank goodness I saved what I needed. 

I’ve been working on my family tree again. My Dad’s line. Two cousins are asking me to write up what I know.  So to do that I’m creating a timeline of what I know for branches of the family..adding images and putting unsolved questions in the document in red. It becomes a research log as well. 

Do Ambrotypes fade when exposed to light?

Related Episodes:

Episode 125: Ask Maureen April 2021

Episode 117: Ask Maureen February 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

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

Two and a half years ago, Shannon Uschold of Generation Story app was a guest on this podcast.  Listeners rocketed it to one of the  top ten episodes where it stayed for a couple of years. I know you have heirlooms you don’t know what to do with and items you’d like to share. Two years ago, Shannon had a dream and worked tirelessly to find solutions. She did it. Generation Story app gives us a way to preserve the stories of heirlooms large and small as well as providing a way for us to share our history by creating new items from pillows to wall coverings.  

Related Episodes:

Episode 19: GenerationStory App

Episode 86: Every Thing Tells a Story

Links:

• Generation Story Save 40% with PD40
• 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:

Shannon Uschold is the Founder & CEO of GenerationStory, a free app that provides anyone a quick and easy way to archive, and tell the story of your most treasured family keepsakes and heirlooms.  In addition to the app, GenerationStory has a Shopify site offering on-demand, customizable products using images of your most treasured items. 

The mission is to capture memories before they are lost and to help people organize and share their family story. 

For Shannon, Every object has a story.  Like many things, GS had a history even before it was created. Compelled by childhood memories, objects, and family stories that surrounded her –  Shannon was inspired to create a solution for organizing and capturing memories before they were lost.  Each time she visited her grandmother’s house, she could be found sitting on a carpet in front of a bookcase full of old family treasures.  Her grandmother would tell little stories about the strips of paper that were rolled inside or attached to the back of an item. 

Coming from a long line of family preservationists, a grandmother, her mother, it’s no wonder Shannon found herself captivated by family stories.  She is a storyteller with a mission to preserve those significant objects in our lives and personal histories.  For Shannon, objects possess the power to captivate and inspire.

The GenerationStory approach that every object has a story – creates a pathway to connect all generations providing the capability to bring together all ages across all cultures.  They are focused on preserving stories before they are lost through the unique lens of sharing our family treasures.  Sharing the story of …… Who We Are, Who We Were, and Who We Will Be. 

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

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

May became National Photography Month in 1987 when Congress recognized the role photography plays in modern society. The American Photographers Association one of the primary backers and supporters of Photography Month. There are activities, exhibits, and sales all month.  Here are some fun ways to participate. 

With the advent of digital imaging interest decreased but then returned in 2007.  National Photography Month Activities

• Photograph  everyday moments   Make a plan to document your life for your descendants. Think of topics like grandma in the kitchen.  Toys. cars.   Perhaps you already document your life. There are Covid themed archives around the world now. Ordinary people and archivists are collecting images, audio, and video (plus more) so that future folk will have the material context to understand the time in which we live.  Is there one in your area?  Ask a local history librarian or a Reference person, they are bound to know.
• Make a photobook.  It doesn’t matter if you use a word processing program or something more sophisticated like Shutterfly or Snapfish.  Chatbooks  turn social media into browseable books with little effort.
• Send a photo card  With Felt  a new app. Old photo or new  There is a new app I can’t wait to try. It’s called Felt and it helps you create cards with digital images and then mails them.  Oooh.  Do I know a few folks that need a family history pick me up. Bet you do too.
• Your pet. Set up an Instagram account for your pet or feature them on Tik Tok.  Dogs and cats are often internet sensations and videos/photos of them go viral. Try it and see.  Pet not really of interest then start an instagram account for your family photos. Watermark each one before uploading using umarkonline.com
• Merge Your Family photos and genealogical information together into a book your descendants will love to look at.   There is nothing like the storytelling potential when you merge images and information. It’s hard for genealogists to accept sometimes that their family isn’t always interested in the tree you’ve built but add in some photos and tell some stories and they’ll be hooked.
• Virtually Visit a photo gallery or museum.  During this pandemic, many museums began offering virtual programming. Some through Facebook, others through YouTube, and some through their website. What’s your favorite museum?  The Museum of the American Revolution’s Facebook page offers short presentations by conservators and artisans.  You can take a virtual tour at The Tenement Museum in New York There are so many options.
• Become the family photographer.   Smartphone or digital SLR, just start snapping and Enroll in a photography course. It doesn’t matter whether it’s at a local college, online, at a local hobby store. it’s a skill you won’t regret acquiring.

I can’t wait to go out in the world again.  While I’m home, I’m in planning mode. What archives do I want to visit?  Is there a location my ancestors lived that I’d like to walk?  Uh.. YES!  Thank you to all the archivists and librarians that are on the job answering our emails and phone calls.  You’re keeping us all sane.  

Have you checked out my Patreon account?  You can support the development of new content (and get content) each month. 

Related Episodes:

Episode 120: Good Pictures: Amateur Photography and Our Family with Art Historian Kim Beil

Episode 110: Best Practices for Photo Organizing

Links:

• Chatbook

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

Death by outfit isn’t something featured in the game of Clue but it could be. Our ancestors lured to the new bright colors of the nineteenth century wore garments poisoned with arsenic and mercury, perhaps hurrying along their deaths. Not that you’re likely to see that as a cause on a death certificate. These garments continue to be harmful to curators today with long lasting toxins. You’ve probably never thought about fashion history as a dangerous profession, but this episode will change your mind.  My guest is a fashion historian who studies toxic fashion and now clothing adaptations worn by a criminal element.  Both topics are fascinating glimpses into what our ancestors wore, why they wore them, and the effects of doing so. 

Related Episodes:

Episode 72: Wearing the Past: A Modern Woman’s Fascination with Period Dress

Episode 106: French Fashion, World War I and Your Ancestors

Links:

• Fashion Studies
• 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:

Dr. Alison Matthews David is an Associate Professor in the School of Fashion and the Graduate Program Director, MA Fashion, at Ryerson University. She has a PhD from Stanford University, has published on nineteenth-century dress and material culture, and launched the open-access journal Fashion Studies with Dr. Ben Barry in 2018. Her most recent research project, Fashion Victims, looked at how clothing physically harmed the health of its makers and wearers. It was published as a book in 2015, was a co-curated exhibition at the Bata Shoe Museum in Toronto, and a co-authored book for children 9-12 years old called Killer Style 

Her current project, The Fabric of Crime: A Forensic History of Fashion, investigates the theme of crime and clothing as weapon, evidence, and disguise. Exhibit A, the exhibition she is co-curating with Elizabeth Semmelhack at the Bata Shoe Museum in Toronto on footwear and crime, will open in November 2022.

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 fami

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

My guest offers tips on preserving the memories of loved ones we’ve lost. Photographs are a key part of remembering. We can see their faces and it triggers a range of emotions in us.  Family history offers us the way to continue to keep our loved ones a part of our everyday lives. Allison Gilbert’s ideas for honoring the ones we love are not just for adults. Children will be able to participate in these activities as well. 

Related Episodes:

Episode 103: Collect, Preserve, and Share with Collectionaire.com

Episode 86: Everything Tells a Story with Martie McNabb

Links:

• Allison Gilbert’s website
• 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:

Allison Gilbert is an Emmy award-winning journalist and one of the most thought-provoking and influential writers on grief and resilience. The author of numerous books including the groundbreaking, Passed and Present: Keeping Memories of Loved Ones Alive, her stirring work reveals the most uplifting and empowering strategies for remembering the family and friends we never want to forget. She serves on the Board of Directors for the National Alliance for Grieving Children and the Advisory Board for the Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors, the preeminent national organization providing grief support to families of America’s fallen heroes.

Allison’s other books include Parentless Parents: How the Loss of Our Mothers and Fathers Impacts the Way We Raise Our Children and Always Too Soon: Voices of Support for Those Who Have Lost Both Parents. She is also co-editor of Covering Catastrophe: Broadcast Journalists Report September 11, the definitive historical record of how broadcast journalists covered that tragic day. The landmark book was turned into a documentary by the U.S. State Department and distributed to embassies and consulates around the world. Allison is the official narrator of the National September 11 Memorial & Museum’s core historical exhibition audio tour and her voice is introduced by Robert De Niro on the museum’s “Witnessing History” tour, the only female journalist to be so honored.

On Allison’s popular grief and resilience blog, she features Q & A’s with some of the most notable names in our culture today including, Arianna Huffington, Jon Stewart, and New York Times bestselling authors Gretchen Rubin, Dani Shapiro, and Susan Orlean.

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 inc

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

At the end of every month, I answer questions from listeners.

How do I safely remove photos from a spiral-bound album?

The kind with the sticky page covered with a sheet of cellophane Celia, that’s called a magnetic album and they were really, really popular and you can still buy them today.

There are so many family tree sites. How do we know which one might be best for us? Well, it depends because they’re all a little bit different.

What is the best way to scan pictures from a yearbook?

You can photograph the entire page with your smartphone. If you have a smartphone or you can lay that book down on a scanner, just be careful, you don’t break the binding and then scan the image that you want from the yearbook.

Do I have any experience with a Photo Stick or Album Saver?

A photo stick or albums saver. These are both USB storage devices and I actually do not recommend using a USB storage device. They don’t last very long. If you want to use one of those temporarily, just to share all your images with someone else then fine, but then upload them to another hard drive or computer.

I had somebody write to me this week and say that their great aunt gave them 76 photo albums and what they should do with them. And it was a long email, but we came up with a solution which is, you know, scan and upload and share and, you know, caption and all of that. This person whose name, I didn’t get said that their great aunt gave them a large collection of family photos shortly before she died, but she had no idea of who most of the people were.

Where is the best place to store digital pictures?

So I have several different methods. I use MemoryWeb, of course. And I love that it’s a photo organizer for genealogists. I use it because it also acts as a backup when my computer crashed and I had to have it taken back to factory settings.

I also have a portable SSD drive. It is a solid drive, so they tend to last longer, but these will all have to be replaced. The drives will have to be replaced.

They don’t last forever. And then I use iCloud because I’m on a Mac. So I have multiple backups and there’s even one collection that I have backed up on Dropbox as well, because. I don’t know what I would do if I lost that. It’s all the photographs scanned by a particular organization and I feel a great deal of responsibility to keep them for everyone.

Where are my photos that used to be in Picasa?

Google hasn’t supported the program for a number of years. Now, there are some articles online that you can read to try to help you find your online photos, which supposedly were transferred into Google photos, but not all.

How can I watch a class that I purchased at MaureenTaylor.com?

When you go to Maureen taylor.com in the upper right-hand corner, there’s a little log in. You’ll see the login with your username and password.

If you don’t know your password, you can reset it. And then once you’re logged in, you’ll see this menu on the left and courses is one of the options you click that, then click the title of the course, then click the title of the lesson and it’s all right there. And when you’re watching the class or a particular lesson, you’ll even see a little materials tag. And that will be for handouts. If there’s one for that session.

I have an old photo in a frame with glass that has about a dime size area, stuck to the glass. How can I get it off without damaging the photo?

That is actually something that you need a professional conservator for. So some images in the early 20th century actually adhered to the glass, but that’s not what you’re describing. You’re describing a photo that maybe had a wet spot that stuck to the glass. You can’t get that off yourself.

Your best action is

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