Name a show with time travel as a theme. I’ve likely seen it. A book with time as a plot. I’ve likely read it. There is something fascinating about the whole idea of actually stepping back into the past. Our photos let us peek into that realm but there is always something missing. We can…
In the late 1970s, my mother decided to organize her pictures. It was way before acid and lignin free materials were readily available. In fact, product advertising was often misleading. She decided it would make a nice present for her children if she placed some of our pictures in albums. She chose the low-cost and…
Last year at this time, I was working with Mike Bronner of Genealabs.com on a new website, one that focuses on local history. Oldpvd.com launched in July as a georeferencing and crowdsourcing site aimed at posting photographs and information about the buildings, places, and people of Providence, RI. It’s been a busy seven months. It’s…
Discarded and re-sold photos appear all over social media, especially Instagram. If you’re looking for a picture of your great uncle Hubert, it might turn up online. The genealogical community hasn’t embraced Instagram the way they have Facebook. That’s too bad, because industry influencers are sharing information there too. It’s no secret that I love looking at…
There’s probably a picture of you in front of a school bus. Perhaps several. If you have children, I bet you’ve taken the same photo of them too. Recently I was a guest on Extreme Gene’s Podcast. I share the history of school photos. You will be amazed at how far back they go. I also…
Many of us live in areas exposure to natural disasters such a hurricanes, tornados and earthquakes. While there is some predictability to weather fluctuations it is the unexpected events such as firs and floods that change our lives There are four steps to a disaster planning process: prevention, preparedness, response and recovery. Most museums, libraries, and…
I love the messages our ancestors left on their photographs. There are arguments about who’s who in different handwriting. Notes about loved ones. Captions that include who labeled the picture. Mathematical problems (this is true!) I’ve even found images with whole family trees outlined on the back explaining how the person in the image fits…
By now you’ve either watched an episode of the Marie Kondo series on joyful cleaning or know someone who has. My drawers are now full of neatly folded clothes. I get it. We have too much stuff, but when cleaning wanders over into the photosphere well then I have an opinion. It’s not horrible to discard certain…
I have a story that will make you sick. Not literally of course, but as soon as I heard it my stomach flipped. We’re all struggling with photo overload. Our parents. Our stuff. It’s a lot. So in an effort to clean out our houses, we turn to short term storage. I did when we…
Several years ago I purchased this image at a photo show. It called to me from a case. “Find my story.” “Name me.” So I bought the image intrigued by the research possibilities. She’s in my book, The Last Muster: Faces of the Revolution. Here’s what I wrote. At some point in the late 1860s,…