The Photo Detective’s® Guide to Identifying Family Photographs

April 20, 2026     1 pm ET

Zoom 

This 2.5 hour live webinar course on Zoom breaks the photo identification process into short, manageable lessons. You’ll follow along as you work with one photograph at a time—learning how the clues in the image guide your research.

You’ll gain practical skills you can use immediately on your own family photos.

What You’ll Learn

How to ask the right questions about a photograph 
How to identify historic photo formats—from daguerreotypes to late-20th-century prints
How to research photographers and establish date ranges
How fashion, hairstyles, and accessories reveal time and place (GOLD Level access)
How to spot overlooked clues hiding in the image
How to add up the details to form solid conclusions
How to build and follow a clear research plan
How AI tools can support (not replace) traditional photo analysis

You’ll learn how to blend classic photo detective skills with modern AI techniques—using technology thoughtfully and responsibly to strengthen your conclusions.

The Result?

You’ll stop guessing.
You’ll stop second-guessing.
And you’ll start seeing your family photographs for what they truly are:

Evidence. Clues. Stories waiting to be told.

SILVER LEVEL

• digital workbook
• 60 days access to the recording

About Maureen

FAQs

The post The Photo Detective’s Guide to Identifying Family Photographs SILVER Level appeared first on Maureen Taylor.

The Photo Detective’s® Guide to Identifying Family Photographs

April 20, 2026.   1 pm ET

Zoom

A Special Limited Opportunity

Sign up now for this intensive virtual workshop of identification, preservation, and sharing tips.

Gold Level includes: 

• a live consult with Maureen of a photo during the class (only 10 available)
• receive a coupon for a Work With Maureen session for $199, regular price $299. $100. savings
• 60 day access to class recording
• digital workbook
• Participants must email a photo a week in advance and have an online family tree. Only 10 people will receive live consults on a photo from their collection. Anyone can ask questions during the presentation. Limited to 10 spots

About Maureen

FAQs

The post The Photo Detective’s Guide to Identifying Family Photographs GOLD Level appeared first on Maureen Taylor.

In this practical, hands-on webinar, Maureen Taylor—The Photo Detective®—guides you through the best modern methods for improving historic photographs. You’ll learn how to make smart decisions about enhancement, when colorization is helpful (and when it isn’t), and how today’s software and AI tools stack up for genealogists.

We’ll explore a range of popular options—including Vivid-Pix Restore, MyHeritage’s photo tools, Google Gemini’s Nano Banana, and other AI-powered solutions. You’ll discover what each tool does well, its limitations, and how to choose the right approach for different types of images: scans, snapshots, tintypes, cabinet cards, slides, and more.

Whether you want to gently clean up a portrait, sharpen a faded scene, or experiment with tasteful colorization, you’ll walk away knowing how to get better results with confidence—and preserve authenticity along the way.

When: December 17, 2025

Time: 2 pm to 3:30 pm ET on Zoom 

This will be recorded.  Attendance is limited to 100 live participants. 

Participants will receive a handout

You’ll learn:

• How colorization happened in the past

• When and how to use historical enhancement methods

• Safe approaches to colorization for genealogists

• Strengths & weaknesses of today’s top editing tools

• How Vivid-Pix Restore and MyHeritage compare

• What AI tools like Google Gemini can (and can’t) do

  • Prompts and Results

• Tips for improving difficult images (fading, color shifting, blurriness)

• How to maintain preservation-friendly practices while enhancing images

Perfect for family historians, photo collectors, and anyone who wants their images to look their best without losing their historical integrity.

Who This Class Is For:

• Family historians and genealogists

• Anyone with a box (or hard drive!) full of old photos

• People curious about using AI tools without losing control of their images

You don’t need to be a tech expert—just someone who wants their photos to look as good as the stories behind them.

The post Revitalize Your Memories: Smart Ways to Restore, Colorize, and Enhance Your Photos appeared first on Maureen Taylor.

Unlike traditional search engines, Perplexity offers direct, conversational answers and cites its sources, allowing users to quickly gauge the credibility of the information presented. In this class, we’ll explore how this tool can complement your existing research methods and help you dig deeper without drowning in tabs or unreliable results.

Through guided examples and real-world research scenarios, you’ll see how Perplexity supports fact-checking, uncovering obscure details, and accelerating your learning curve on any subject. It’s not just about getting answers—it’s about asking smarter questions.

This class is ideal for anyone curious about how AI can be used responsibly and efficiently in academic, professional, or personal research. No technical background is required—just a willingness to experiment with a powerful new tool.

Join us to learn how Perplexity can become your research sidekick—making your work faster, sharper, and more insightful.

We’ll take the Google versus Perplexity challenge too.

What You Will Learn:

• What is Perplexity and how does it work?
• Comparing Perplexity to Google, ChatGPT, and traditional archives
• Genealogy-specific use cases
• Case studies–photo identification, consistency checking, image searching, family narratives and more
• Ethical considerations and limitations

Why This Class? This class is more than just a technical walkthrough; it’s an interactive exploration of what’s possible and not (yet) with Perplexity.ai.  Whether you’re a hobbyist or a professional genealogist, you’ll find invaluable resources and expert guidance tailored to making the most of your historical photo collections. Bring your questions and we’ll run some tests.

The post 2025 Unlock the Power of Perplexity.ai appeared first on Maureen Taylor.

Inheriting a box (or bushel) of pictures is a big responsibility. Two things happen:

• First, you panic and wonder how am I going to have enough time to organize these pictures?
• Then, you experience the great joy from knowing that you’ve been trusted to pass on this heirloom treasure to the next generation.

This new video course covers the basics from tackling those boxes to scanning resolution and storage. A bonus segment covers what to do with all your digital pictures too!

This course is for you if have boxes of family photographs you don’t know how to preserve and organized. Feeling overwhelmed by the number of pictures you have is a common problem. If you’re like most folks, you have real images from family, scans on your computers and pictures on your phones and tablets too. It is possible to care for all those pictures without losing your mind. All it takes are the right supplies, a place to store them, and some time.

Don’t Lose the Past

It would be easy to toss a family photo. You have so many, right? You think, “I don’t need this photo.” But you do.

All those photos add up to tell the story of your family. By saving them, you are saving the past for the future. All your photos anchor children to family history and lead them on a path of self-discovery and well-being.

Save the Story

That’s where my Essential Photo Organizing course comes in. This 7 installment course breaks down the process of preserving and organizing photos into short lessons so you can follow-along as you work with your pictures.

You’ll learn how to spot historic photo formats, how to store different types of pictures, how to label them and how to scan them.
That’s not all. I’ll show you how to develop a workflow for scanning, filing and retrieving your images.

The course explains the how-to and includes some downloadable extras. If you have a question, it’s easy to send me a message in the course.

About Maureen

I love photos! That’s no secret. As a former photographic curator and librarian, I’ve spent my career caring for photographs and teaching clients how to preserve their family photos. Never met a picture I didn’t love. They are all special in their own way.

I’ve been recognized for my expertise by the New York Times, Better Homes and Gardens, The Boston Globe and the Wall Street Journal, who claimed I was the “nation’s foremost historical photo detective.”

I’ve written or contributed to more than 30 books (I think). When I tell you that photographs are my passion, I have the proof.

What You’ll Learn

Don’t forget if you have questions about the material you can contact me using the built-in messaging functionality in the course.

FAQs

Can I do this course on mobile?

Absolutely! You can log into your account on MaureenTaylor.com from any device.

What equipment do I need to do this class?

No special equipment is required to view the class. There is a downloadable shopping list for supplies so that you can work with your pictures as you go. Don’t forget to download the lesson handouts and the Resource ebook.

Will I be able to ask you questions?

In each module there is a “contact the teacher” button. Click that to send me a question. I personally respond to your queries.

Does this course cover international images?

The lessons include general information that can help you preserve photographs overseas as well.

Are you available to look at my photos ?

I’d love to help! Please see my consultation page for more details. If you have more than three photos to look at, please ask about volume pricing. I love working with clients on their photo mysteries.

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