Maureen Taylor


The Photo Detective
Finding Family History In Your Picture Mysteries

100% Treasured: Your Family History by Way of a Photo

I’m Maureen and I know photographs. And how even the tiniest details can reveal the biggest clues about a person, where they come from and what they meant to their friends, their family – even the world. Welcome to my digital home, Maureen Taylor the Photodetective! I’ve set up this site to help you find what you need most.

If this is your first visit, I recommend starting with any of the following pages:

Browse the Store
Photo ID Help
Ask Maureen


As Featured on TV and in Magazines

Where We Lived

One of my favorite books is Jack Larkin’s Where We Lived: Discovering the Places We Once Called Home, (Taunton Press, $40.00). When I pass by an old house I can't help but wonder about the everyday lives of the original occupants. Larkin lets us peek into that past with gorgeous photographs and fascinating stories.  Houses, schools, slave quarters, houses of worship, public structures, and even outhouses. It might sound strange, but his book makes me think about my grandmother.   Every Sunday, we'd take my father's mother for a drive. The sole purpose was to visit all the places she'd once lived.  Most of them were gone. There were just holes ...   Continue Reading

Revolutionary War Roots on Ancestry.com

About 6 in 10 of us have a family member who lived during that period of American history while only 1 in 40 have ancestors that participated in the war.  Finding the documentation for those war-time ancestors is easier than you might think.   Take a look at the Ancestry.com military records page for the Revolutionary War and view the types of resources you can search   That’s a lot of Revolutionary War related links   Here are a few records to whet your appetite for more information on those revolutionary folks. Pension Records Want to know more about your Revolutionary War ancestor, then search for a pension record. These documents are chock-full ...   Continue Reading

Ask Maureen - Episode 7

Show Notes 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 Maureen can help you to discover. Amelia Earhart - the photo mystery that recently surfaced and how checking the archives at the source is an important step in the process Maureen's recent mention of an orphan photo taken by George Parlow ...   Continue Reading

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