More than twenty thousand people on social media have viewed these images of the mysterious women in uniform. That’s a whole lot of eyes. Thank you for all the leads! Here’s the update. The Buildings The United States Army built Spanish Colonial buildings at many of their bases. All had tile roofs and stucco exteriors,…
The details in this picture are plentiful. A man in an apron holding a shoe. Patriotic bunting. A house. It’s so lovely I couldn’t resist. I bought it at an antique shop in Franklin, New Hampshire. A sticker on the front of the glass frame says: “Cobbler Shop, West Bow St., Franklin.” Other than that…
Fitzwilliam and Rindge, New Hampshire are lovely towns situated on country roads. A blurry picture of Revolutionary War veteran, Eleazer Blake led me there. I arrived with Vermissima Productions on a typical spring New England day. It was cold, blustery, and sunny. We were hunting for details of Blake’s wartime service. We discovered many more…
At this list-making time of year, I stop and reflect on my favorite new things related to photos. I know that if you get my newsletter, then you love pictures too. Items mentioned here might be something you want to suggest to your personal gift giver. I won’t tell if you decide to buy it…
There are currently two popular books on the market that help us deal with all the stuff we’ve accumulated, The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning and The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up. Put their advice together and you get the title of this piece. They both provide guidance, but it’s their solution to the problem of…
Friday is a big day in my life. It’s a special day set aside for photo consults with clients. I get to peek into your incredible collections and solve mysteries. Each session starts with a question: “How did you hear of me?” Some folks have been hanging on to one of my business cards for…
It’s true. There is a relatively new app in a genealogist’s toolkit. It’s called MemoryWeb. Christopher and Nancy Desmond, realized that family historians needed extra features in a photo organizer so they set out to create it. They know what we need, because they are genealogists themselves. I LOVE it! My digital photos are a…
I live in Rhode Island. You’d think the answer to that question would be easy. It’s the smallest state in the country with 8 cities, 31 towns, and only 5 counties. Yet folks that live here usually don’t give you the name of a city or town when you ask where they are from. They…
DAR Library Acquisition Assistant Andrew Boisvert is one crafty genealogist/historian. Years before we worked together on Rhode Island research projects. I’m well aware of his research skills. A few weeks ago he thought, “What would happen if I searched for soldiers in the 1860 Federal Census?” He used the parameters born in 1756 with…
You gotta love a librarian! James Jeffrey of the Western History/Genealogy Collection of the Denver Public Library bought a couple of pictures and sent them to me. He also mailed me a page from the 1860 Federal Census of Pennsylvania listing the family. Thank you, James! On the surface, they are simple carte des…
A long time ago, my husband worked for Polaroid. Portions of my kid’s childhood are frozen in those shiny plastic images. Part of the fun was watching them develop. The plastic makes it difficult to write information on them so you know what I’m going to say. It’s a photo saving nightmare. At the outdoor…
Why do people love old photos? That was the question a vendor at a local outdoor market asked me. Her question was in reply to my inquiry about the price of a photo on her table. She then told me that she’d recently been in someone’s house where there was an entire wall of old…