Photo Identification Archives - Maureen Taylor https://maureentaylor.com/category/photo-identification/ The Photo Detective Tue, 03 Mar 2026 16:15:29 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.4 https://maureentaylor.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/cropped-site-icon-32x32.png Photo Identification Archives - Maureen Taylor https://maureentaylor.com/category/photo-identification/ 32 32 99869351 A Quiet Life, A Lasting Legacy: Remembering My Nana https://maureentaylor.com/a-quiet-life-a-lasting-legacy-remembering-my-nana/ Tue, 03 Mar 2026 16:15:24 +0000 https://maureentaylor.com/?p=85505 In honor of International Women’s Day, I want to celebrate a woman who never appeared in headlines and never sought attention—my Nana, my paternal grandmother. She lived what many might call an ordinary life. Yet to me, it was anything but ordinary. She is the only grandparent I truly remember. By the time I was […]

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Eliza Jane Wilson, circa 1912, photo on silk. Collection of the author

In honor of International Women’s Day, I want to celebrate a woman who never appeared in headlines and never sought attention—my Nana, my paternal grandmother. She lived what many might call an ordinary life. Yet to me, it was anything but ordinary. She is the only grandparent I truly remember. By the time I was born, both of my grandfathers were gone, and my maternal grandmother died when I was just a year old. Nana was my living link to the past.

Memory preserves her in small, vivid details. She called the living room the parlor, a word that felt like it belonged to another century. Every Sunday, the smell of pot roast filled the house. Her clam chowder was a family staple. She colored patiently, always in small, careful circles. A bright green parakeet named Birdie chirped in the background of her apartment. On summer days, we’d make lemonade together, rolling the lemons and oranges to squeeze the juice.

For seven years, my family lived downstairs from her in a three-tenement house my father owned. Her oldest daughter lived with her; sometimes her youngest son did too. She walked slowly in sturdy boots and wore her long hair pulled back in a hairnet well into her seventies. At Christmastime, she could look out her window and see the Tower in Jenks Park in Central Falls, Rhode Island—a landmark that anchored her to place and tradition.

But woven through those steady domestic rhythms was something quieter. She missed her family. She rarely spoke about her parents or her early life. My mother once remarked that Nana did not like her own mother. That silence should have told me something.

When I began looking for answers, the census offered clues. On the 1910 U.S. census for Pawtucket’s Fourth Ward, her mother, Sarah Jane Kelley, reported that she had given birth to nine children, but only five were still living. One of the children lost was from her mother’s disastrous, only days-long first marriage. Nana—born Eliza—entered the world in December of 1892. Earlier that same year, in February, her older brother James had died. For six years afterward, she was the only surviving child in the household. Suddenly, that childhood studio portrait takes on new meaning. There are no photographs of her siblings as young children, but why was she taken to a photographer, requiring a trip by public transportation? Perhaps she represented both hope and fragile survival in a family acquainted with loss.

Eliza Jane Wilson, circa 1896. Collection of the author

The 1910 census also reveals her nickname—Liza—and that at seventeen she worked as a mill hand in a tag shop. The household was crowded: several of her mother’s siblings lived with them, four in addition to a cousin, making twelve people under one roof. That same year brought another blow. In December 1910, her father, Harry Wilson, died, leaving Sarah with four children under the age of twelve. Loss, responsibility, and crowded living conditions were part of Nana’s early landscape long before she became the woman I knew.

There was another tragedy she carried quietly. While babysitting her first grandson, he died of whooping cough. Grief visited her more than once.

A later photograph of her, printed on silk (shown above), shows a poised young woman. My father always said it was her wedding portrait. Not every early twentieth-century bride wore white; many married in their best dress, as she appears to have done. On September 30, 1912, she married James William Taylor at St. Paul’s Church in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. Together, they would have six children and build the family that eventually included me.

As a genealogist, I have learned that what isn’t said can be as powerful as what is recorded. Nana did not talk about her parents. She did not share stories of crowded rooms or early bereavement. Instead, she offered pot roast on Sundays, careful coloring in small circles, and the steady reassurance of presence.

Her life was not famous. It was not headline-making. But it was marked by resilience, quiet endurance, and the ability to keep going after loss. On this International Women’s Day, I honor women like my Nana—women whose strength was not loud, but lasting.

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]]> 85505 Episode 214: Mourning Jewelry Curiosities https://maureentaylor.com/episode-214-mourning-jewelry-curiosities/ Sun, 20 Aug 2023 14:50:12 +0000 https://maureentaylor.com/?p=74259   This week on the podcast, Maureen Taylor, The Photo Detective, is joined by Amelia Soth. Amelia is a Wisconsin-based writer who has been writing the column “Cabinet of Curiosities” for JSTOR, which focuses on historical oddities. Maureen and Amelia discuss her process in writing and finding these stories and how the nuanced parts of […]

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This week on the podcast, Maureen Taylor, The Photo Detective, is joined by Amelia Soth. Amelia is a Wisconsin-based writer who has been writing the column “Cabinet of Curiosities” for JSTOR, which focuses on historical oddities.

Maureen and Amelia discuss her process in writing and finding these stories and how the nuanced parts of history can often lead to great discoveries.

Episode 150: Victorian Mourning Curiosities

Episode 61: Mourning Jewelry: Fact and Fiction 

About My Guest:

Amelia Soth is a Wisconsin-based writer who is fascinated by (as Dr. Francis Young puts it) “the great tension of being a historian: [the fact that] people in the past were simultaneously both just like us and quite unlike us.” She also writes and edits for Mouse Magazine.

About Maureen Taylor:

Maureen Taylor, The Photo DetectiveÒhelps clients with photo-related genealogical problems. Her pioneering work in historic photo research has earned her the title “the nation’s foremost historical photo detective” by The Wall Street Journal and appearances on The View, The Today Show, Pawn Stars, and others.   Learn more at Maureentaylor.com

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

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]]> 74259 Episode 206: Found in an Attic, Returned to Family https://maureentaylor.com/episode-206-found-in-an-attic-returned-to-family/ Sun, 16 Apr 2023 16:01:53 +0000 https://maureentaylor.com/?p=73658       This week on The Photo Detective podcast, Maureen Taylor, the Photo Detective, is joined by Trevor Mattea. Trevor shares how finding a photo in his home’s attic helped inspire him to find who that photo belonged to – meaning the descendants of the people in the photo.  This episode looks at the […]

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This week on The Photo Detective podcast, Maureen Taylor, the Photo Detective, is joined by Trevor Mattea.


Trevor shares how finding a photo in his home’s attic helped inspire him to find who that photo belonged to – meaning the descendants of the people in the photo. 

This episode looks at the intimate journey that can come from these so-called “orphan photos” and what a reunion looks like. In fact, Trevor actually reached out to Maureen for advice on what to do with the photo and the two recount those steps and how to approach one of these ownerless photos to help find a descendant. 

With so many orphan photos, this podcast episode offers advice on how to go about trying to reunite a photo with its owners. 

 

Bonus Episode: Lost History Discovered (in the Recycling) 

Episode 137: The Walls Can Talk: Finding History in a Hidden Room with David Whitcomb 

About My Guest:

Trevor Mattea has a range of professional experiences and interests grounded in conversation, knowledge-building, and creative expression. As an at-home parent to a young son, he focuses on genealogy, family traditions, homeschooling, and home renovation. He creates personalized gifts and party games through his Etsy store, BingoMe.

Previously, Trevor taught elementary school and consulted throughout the country in the areas of deeper learning, digital portfolios, project-based learning, parent engagement, and technology integration. He also hosted the New Books in Education podcast.

He holds an M.A. in Education from Stanford University and an A.B. in Political Science from Washington University.

About Maureen Taylor:

Maureen Taylor, The Photo DetectiveÒhelps clients with photo-related genealogical problems. Her pioneering work in historic photo research has earned her the title “the nation’s foremost historical photo detective” by The Wall Street Journal and appearances on The View, The Today Show, Pawn Stars, and others.   Learn more at Maureentaylor.com

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

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]]> 73658 Episode 205: Numbers to Names: A Holocaust Photo Database https://maureentaylor.com/episode-205-numbers-to-names-a-holocaust-photo-database/ Sun, 02 Apr 2023 12:00:20 +0000 https://maureentaylor.com/?p=73654       This week on the Photo Detective Podcast, Maureen Taylor, The Photo Detective, is joined by Daniel Patt. Daniel is a software engineer at Google, as well as the grandson of three holocaust survivors.  It’s this familial relation that inspired Daniel, in his spare time, to create an artificial intelligence platform called “From […]

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This week on the Photo Detective Podcast, Maureen Taylor, The Photo Detective, is joined by Daniel Patt. Daniel is a software engineer at Google, as well as the grandson of three holocaust survivors. 

It’s this familial relation that inspired Daniel, in his spare time, to create an artificial intelligence platform called “From Numbers to Names” that aids those descended from individuals who faced the Holocaust to discover connections and photos of their loved ones. The project also aims to help identify the millions of unidentified faces in the Holocaust photo and video archives. 

Maureen and Daniel discuss his project, how a trip to Poland six years ago served as the inspiration to create this project, and how his background has helped him develop AI. 

It’s a project that all listeners should hear about, whether they are descendants of those who were in the Holocaust or not. 

Episode 187 : Building a Story with the Ancestry.com App

Episode 153: Ellis Island Immigrant Photos Identified with Louis Takács

About My Guest:

Daniel Patt is a software engineer at Google, and is the grandson of three holocaust survivors. In his spare time, he created an artificial intelligence platform called From Numbers to Names to help Holocaust descendants discover photos of their loved ones – and help identify the millions of unidentified faces in Holocaust photo and video archives.

About Maureen Taylor:

Maureen Taylor, The Photo DetectiveÒhelps clients with photo related genealogical problems. Her pioneering work in historic photo research has earned her the title “the nation’s foremost historical photo detective” by The Wall Street Journal and appearances on The View, The Today Show, Pawn Stars, and others.   Learn more at Maureentaylor.com

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

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]]> 73654 Episode 193: Stereographs with Pascal Martine https://maureentaylor.com/episode-193-stereographs-with-pascal-martine/ Sun, 16 Oct 2022 04:00:00 +0000 https://maureentaylor.com/?p=72635 This week Maureen Taylor, The Photo Detective, is joined by Pascal Martine. The two discuss Pascal’s collection of wooden stereo photo viewers, both handheld and tabletop, as well as how his collection began out of a love for the nostalgia he had for his childhood Viewmaster. In 2019, he built his own stereo rig in […]

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This week Maureen Taylor, The Photo Detective, is joined by Pascal Martine. The two discuss Pascal’s collection of wooden stereo photo viewers, both handheld and tabletop, as well as how his collection began out of a love for the nostalgia he had for his childhood Viewmaster. In 2019, he built his own stereo rig in order to take modern stereo photos and then documented his journey on social media.

Episode 173: Cabinet Cards of Broadway and Silver Screen Stars with David Shields

Episode 170: Snapshot Cameras in Your Family with Peter Dumas

About My Guest:

Pascal Martine started his stereoscopic journey in late 2016 soon after he spotted a small cardboard viewer at a local antiques market. It reminded him of a childhood Viewmaster.  His collection now includes dozens of wooden viewers, both handheld and tabletop, sometimes with their storage furniture, cameras, and developing tools as well as historic documents like catalogs and thousands of glass stereo views. He enjoys restoring viewers, bringing back the original beauty to a viewer or camera that was long forgotten in an attic or basement. 

After the 2019 ISU congress in Lübeck, Germany Pascal built his own stereo rig and began sharing his photos on Instagram. You can read about his current standard workflow for taking modern stereo photos here and see the results on Instagram. In 2020, he got involved in the Virtual Stereoscopic Community.

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.

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