Published December 11, 2018
| 1 Comment | Leave A ReplyThomas R. Liszka, an Associate Professor Emeritus of English from Penn State Altoona, posed an interesting question to your “Roots & Branches” columnist.
“I wonder if you have any suggestions on finding pictures of people,” he mused. “I have already been in touch with and collected photos from the older members of my wife’s and my families. I was delighted to find a picture of my wife’s grandfather with his naturalization papers.”
He wrote that he and his wife have had no luck, though, with some of their other naturalized relatives. “Are there other documents that might have pictures?”
Before getting to the answer to Liszka’s question, let’s do a quick review of photography.
Maureen Taylor, who trades as the Photo Detective and is pretty much the acknowledged expert on all things relating to the subject, points out on her website that the photography age began in 1839 with daguerreotypes. Technology changed rapidly into glass ambrotypes (invented in 1854), followed by tintypes or ferrotypes (1856). Small paper prints called cartes de visite were also introduced in 1854.
Beyond that time photography became more and more common through the second half of the 19th century.
But what about Liszka’s specific question: Finding photos of ancestors when you’ve already mined what older relatives may have?
The truth is that there aren’t too many documents for which photos are required. As Liszka has learned, naturalizations in the 20th century usually contain photos but earlier ones do not.
Another group of documents to look at would be military records. The National Archives, for example, has a photo collection (extending beyond military people) that’s explained on its website at the URL, https://www.archives.gov/research/genealogy/pictures.
Applications for U.S. passports (on Ancestry.com through 1925) sometimes include a photo of the applicant.
In addition to these few types of records, there are also photo databases online that might be useful. One of the largest is “Dead Fred” at the URL, http://www.deadfred.com.
“Family History Daily” also has an excellent blog identifying some other databases called “Have You Searched These Genealogy Photo Collections for Your Ancestors?”
In addition to the documents we’ve touched upon, I would also challenge Liszka whether all family sources have been mined.
Especially for generations from the 19th century, where time and possibly distance have separated extended families that may be thousands of people by now, photos of those ancestors could be in the hands of people in any one of many branches, not just family elders. If there’s any additional impetus needed to do “whole family genealogy” – tracing siblings of direct-line ancestors and the resultant cousins – this is surely it!
Finally, Liszka raised another possibility himself: “Even arrest reports, I’m sorry to say,” he wrote, without elaboration!
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Jen
5 years ago
Thank you for these resource ideas. Another unfortunate issue is that we have tons of photos from family elders who have since passed away and we have no idea who the people are in their photos. Family? Friends? Neighbors?