If you’ve ever been told, “If there’s a nun in your family, figure out her order,” you’re not alone—and you’re probably also wondering how on earth to do that.

In a recent episode of The Photo Detective Podcast, I sat down with Sunny Morton to talk about her groundbreaking book, Searching for Sisters: A Guide to Researching Catholic Nuns in the United States. What started as a simple conversation turned into a deep dive into one of the most overlooked groups in family history: women who entered religious life.

The Mystery of the “Disappearing Woman”

As genealogists, we’ve all seen it.

A woman appears in childhood records—census entries, maybe a baptism—and then… she vanishes.

No marriage. No death record (at least not where you expect it). No trace.

One possibility? She became a nun.

As Sunny pointed out, these women often “disappear” from traditional family records because they step into an entirely different system—one with its own names, rules, and archives.

And unless you know where to look, they can remain hidden for generations.

My Own Surprise Discovery

Here’s the twist—even for me.

I didn’t think I had any nuns in my family.

But when I dug into newly available newspaper records, I found an obituary for my two-times great-grandmother—and there they were. Two daughters listed as “Sister,” each in a different religious order.

Two nuns. Completely unknown to me.

That’s the moment this topic went from interesting to essential.

Why Identifying the Order Matters

You can’t just search for “nun” and expect results.

Religious women belonged to specific communities—orders, congregations, convents—each with its own records. And those records can be incredibly rich:

• Personal files
• Correspondence
• Entrance records
• Sometimes even photographs

But first, you need to identify the order.

That’s where clues come in.

Clues in Records—and Photographs

Sunny shared one of the most important strategies: start with what you already have.

Obituaries are gold mines. They often list religious names and affiliations.
Census and vital records can help you match birth names to religious identities.
Newspapers may report vow ceremonies or community events.

And for those of us who work with images? Photographs can be key.

The clothing—the habit—is not just attire. It’s an identifier.

Archivists who work with these collections can often recognize an order just by looking at a photograph. As Sunny explained, they can look at an image and say, “That’s not one of ours”—or point you in the right direction.

That’s powerful.

The Archives You Didn’t Know Existed

Here’s something many researchers miss: most religious orders have archives.

These are not always open for walk-in research, but they are often accessible by email—and the archivists are remarkably helpful.

They want to connect people with their history.

And when you reach out clearly—explaining who you’re researching and why—you may receive detailed information you won’t find anywhere else.

A Bigger Story: Visibility and Impact

One of the most striking parts of our conversation was realizing just how significant these women were—and how often they’re overlooked.

In the 19th and early 20th centuries, women religious:

• Built hospital systems
• Ran schools across the country
• Provided social services on a massive scale

At one point, they were responsible for a significant portion of healthcare in the United States.

And yet, in many family trees, they’re invisible.

What This Means for Your Research

If you have a “missing” woman in your family tree, consider this possibility.

Look for:

• Mentions of “Sister” in obituaries
• Gaps in records where a woman disappears
• Catholic family connections
• Newspaper references to convents or religious life

And don’t forget to look at your photographs with fresh eyes.

That unidentified woman in a habit? She may be the key to an entirely new branch of your research.

Final Thoughts

This episode reminded me of something I say all the time:

Every photograph—and every person—has a story.

Sometimes, that story just requires a different set of records to uncover.

Sunny Morton’s work gives us a roadmap to find those stories—and bring these remarkable women back into the family narrative where they belong.

About My Guest

Sunny Jane Morton is a genealogy educator whose expertise includes using U.S. religious denominational records for family history. She is author of the new book, Searching for Sisters: A Guide to Researching Catholic Nuns in the United States. She is co-author of How to Find Your Family History in U.S. Church Records, which received a book award from the National Genealogical Society (NGS). She is Editor of NGS Magazine; a Contributing Editor at Family Tree Magazine; and an Associate member of the Archivists for Congregations of Women Religious.

Save on Sunny’s Books

• Save on both of Sunny’s books with coupon code Church26 at Genealogical.com
• Searching for Sisters
• How to Find Your Family History in US Church Records 

The post Finding Hidden Nuns in Your Family Tree: Researching Catholic Sisters with Sunny Morton appeared first on Maureen Taylor.

1. It Speeds Up Identification

Instead of manually reviewing thousands of images, facial recognition narrows your focus. It gathers every instance of a face in one place, making it easier to confirm identities and spot patterns.

2. It Helps You Reunite Scattered Collections

Many of us have photos spread across devices, hard drives, and platforms. Facial recognition connects images of the same person—even if they were taken years apart or stored in different folders.

3. It Provides Context Clues

Grouping photos by event or time period gives you visual evidence:

• Who appears together repeatedly
• What ages individuals appear to be
• Changes in clothing or location

These are the same clues you use when analyzing historical photographs.

4. It Supports Your Metadata Workflow

Facial recognition doesn’t replace metadata—it jumpstarts it.

Once a face is identified, you can:

• Add full names
• Tag relationships
• Include dates and locations

That information becomes searchable, portable, and usable across platforms (when the platform supports embedded metadata—always worth testing).

5. It Makes Sharing Meaningful

A labeled photo is a usable photo. When you share images with family, you’re not just sending pictures—you’re sharing identified people and stories.

6. It Reduces the “I’ll Do It Later” Problem

Let’s be honest—labeling our own lifetime photos often gets pushed aside. Facial recognition lowers the barrier so you can make progress quickly.

Want to Try It?

If you’re curious about how facial recognition can work in your own collection, I’m happy to walk you through it.

We can set up a quick 10-minute Zoom call and get you started with a free 2 GB Forever® account.

Because every unidentified face is a story waiting to be told—and this is one of the fastest ways to begin.

The post 6 Reasons to Use Facial Recognition in a Photo Organizer? appeared first on Maureen Taylor.

But here’s the best thing.  Forever.com’s facial recognition program is the best in the business.  That’s my opinion, and if you use it, I hope you’ll agree.

On Monday morning, I went into the Forever account, saw the pictures, and clicked the people option on the left.  There were all the photos that had unnamed faces. Easy peasy to add names to the images. Forever uses a batch method, grouping images from the same events, so that you can see the context of the unidentified faces.  Once you identify one in the group, it applies to the other images of the same person. 

Interested in a test drive, ask me how. We can set up a free 10-minute Zoom call and a 2 GB account on Forever.com

Why you should use a program with facial recognition?

It’s a time saver.

Over the weekend, I uploaded about 2,000 images to my Forever® account—family photographs, vacation snapshots, and a catch-all of older digital files that had been scattered across devices.

To speed up the process, I upgraded from the free Valet® service to the paid version. The upload itself took only seconds—always a satisfying moment when you’re facing a backlog of images.

But here’s what really impressed me.

Forever’s facial recognition feature is, in my experience, one of the most effective tools available for organizing family photographs.

On Monday morning, I logged in, opened my account, and clicked on the “People” tab. Instantly, I could see groups of images containing unidentified faces. Instead of hunting through folders or guessing, the software brought the problem to me.

Even better, the system groups images by event or context. That means you’re not looking at random faces—you’re seeing people surrounded by visual clues: clothing, companions, locations. That context is exactly what genealogists need to make accurate identifications.

Once I identified one person in a group, the software applied that identification across other images of the same individual. What could have taken hours—or days—was reduced to minutes.

Easy. Efficient. And surprisingly satisfying.

The post Find the Faces Faster: Why Facial Recognition Is a Game-Changer for Family Photos appeared first on Maureen Taylor.

As the Photo Detective, I’ve handled hundreds of photo albums—everything from 1860s carte de visite collections to black paper albums of the 1910s, oversized Gilded Age volumes that resemble family Bibles, and yes, even those “sticky” magnetic albums with pages that did more harm than good.

At first glance, they may look wildly different. But they all share something important.

Someone created them with intention.

Every album is a curated story. A person—often a mother, sister, or devoted relative—selected images, arranged them, and decided what (and who) mattered. Some albums tell sweeping family stories across generations. Others capture a moment in time: friendships, courtships, school days, or even celebrity admiration.

And here’s something many people overlook: these albums are rarely just about family.

They’re about community.

Friends, neighbors, coworkers, and admired figures often appear alongside relatives. That’s where the real detective work begins. Identifying the people requires more than just recognizing faces. It takes context—family trees, local history, and what genealogists call the FAN network (friends, associates, and neighbors).

This isn’t something you can simply hand over to AI and expect instant answers.

Dating the photos is just the starting point. Understanding the story takes time, information, and patience.

I’ve seen albums passed down through generations of sisters—each one rearranging the images and adding her own layer to the narrative. I’ve worked with albums split apart, sold, and scattered—sometimes lost to auctions, sometimes recovered piece by piece. Each album comes with its own mystery… and its own surprises.

That’s what makes them so compelling.

If you have an album you can’t quite figure out, you’re not alone. And if your society or group is looking for a program on unraveling album stories, I bring real case studies—and a deep love of solving these visual puzzles.

After all, every album is a puzzle.

And yes—I do love a good jigsaw.

The post The Stories Hidden in Family Photo Albums appeared first on Maureen Taylor.

It’s confession time. I thought I knew the answer to that question.

I don’t.

Recently, while creating a slideshow for an upcoming family event, I had to face an uncomfortable truth: some of my photos were not a keystroke away. For someone who teaches photo organization, that’s a humbling realization.

Over the years, multiple computers and photo-organizing systems quietly separated me from my own images. You probably know exactly what I mean. One laptop here, an external drive there, a folder saved “temporarily” that never made it back into the main collection.

The irony isn’t lost on me. My older family photographs—the ones I’ve carefully researched—are beautifully organized, labeled, and preserved on Forever.com with embedded metadata. But my everyday life photos? They’ve been a little… neglected.

Are they lost? No.

They exist—scattered across hard drives, tucked into backups, and saved during transitions from one computer to another. The problem isn’t loss. It’s access.

And access is everything.

If you can’t easily find a photo, you can’t use it, share it, or pass along the story behind it. That’s when images quietly slip out of your active family history and into digital obscurity.

So I’m doing what I often recommend to others: going back and reclaiming my own collection.

Here’s a simple path you can follow too:

1. Gather everything in one place
Track down images from old computers, external drives, cloud services, and even email attachments. Think of this as your digital “photo reunion.”

2. Consolidate into a single system
Whether you use Forever.com or another platform, choose one primary home for your images. Fragmentation is the enemy of access.

3. Add meaningful metadata
Names, places, dates, and relationships matter. Even partial information is valuable. Metadata turns a picture into a record.

4. Build a simple workflow going forward
Decide what happens to new photos: where they go, when they’re labeled, and how often you review them. Consistency beats perfection.

I’m working on this—and you can too.

It’s surprisingly easy to document the lives of our ancestors while overlooking our own. But someday, these everyday snapshots will be the “old family photos” someone else is trying to understand.

Let’s make it easier for them.

The post Do You Know Where All Your Photos Are? appeared first on Maureen Taylor.