I’ve already talked about how I started to tackle the task of organizing my old family photos, and shared some of the cool things I found when I searched my photos for family history clues.  Now I’d like to talk about some of the tools I’m finding helpful in managing this project:

• Picasa.  Up until recently, I had been using the photo organizing software that came with my Kodak camera.  I hated it, but I never got around to looking for alternatives.  I’m glad this project forced me to finally do so, though, because Picasa is SO much better than what I had before.  For example:
  • It’s free. That fit my budget of zero dollars perfectly.
  • It’s easy to use. Making minor changes (cropping, resizing, etc.) are quick and painless.  I never once had to read the directions.  Uploading the photos to web albums for sharing was a snap.
  • It lets you tag photos by geographic location. If you know where the photo was taken, you can pinpoint that spot using Google Maps.  Visitors to your web albums can also see where the photos were taken.
  • It has a facial recognition feature. This isn’t perfect, but it’s good enough that I found it helpful (and a lot of fun).  It “sees” where there are faces in the photos, and asks you who they are.  As you identify people, it helps you find them in other photos as well.  I was amazed at how accurate it was…and it was interesting to see who the computer thought each person was in photos where I wasn’t sure myself.  It’s also sort of fun to see how it picks up on a strong family resemblance (it constantly confused my great-great-grandma with one of her sons, who looked exactly like her).  The other handy part of this feature is that once you’ve identified all of the people in the photo, your web album visitors can mouse-over each face and the name will pop up.  When I’m sharing group photos with distant cousins who don’t know the people in the photos, this is very helpful.
  • It allows you do make cool collages in just a couple of clicks. I made one to use as my Twitter background, which you can see here.
• Google Maps. It was fascinating to enter the addresses of some of my ancestors’ old homes and use Google’s Street View to see whether they were still there.  I was surprised at how often their houses were still standing, and saddened to see the state of some of them (the house where my great-grandparents were married is run down and boarded up).  It’s also a nice way to go for a “walk” in your ancestor’s neighborhood, and see what churches, schools, and other buildings might have been nearby in their day.
• The Minnesota Historical Society’s  List of Photographers. If you have Minnesotan ancestors, this is a must-bookmark.  The Minnesota Historical Society has a list of all of the known commercials photographers and photography studios in the state.  This is a huge help in dating photographs.  For example, I have a photo that was taken at the Hennepin Studio in Minneapolis.  Based on the time the family lived in Minneapolis and the time the website says the Hennepin Studio was in business, I can be reasonably sure that the photo was taken in 1907-1908.  That’s a big help.
• Uncovering Your Ancestry Through Family Photographs by Maureen Taylor.  This is one of the handiest genealogy-related books I own (which is really saying something, because I have three very tall bookshelves filled with genealogy-related books and materials).   The tools for dating photographs and coaxing out their hidden clues are fantastic.  Even if you’re not a genealogist, this is a great resource.

What tools have you found helpful in working with your old family photos?

Note:  Links to Amazon, like the one for Maureen Taylor’s book above, are affiliate links.  That means that if you buy the book, you pay the same price as you would have if you’d gone looking for it yourself…but I get a very small commission from Amazon for referring you to it.  Then I use that money to pay the electric bill.  So thanks for the electricity!  I only recommend books that I genuinely like, and I paid for them all myself.  No one has bribed me (so far).

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Last time we talked about the mechanics of starting to organize and scan in your pictures.  Today I want to share a few of the genealogical clues I found when I went through 300 or so of my oldest family photos.  Part of the reason my project took so long is that I spent the bulk of my time analyzing the photos.  It was worth it.  Here’s a sampling of some of the clues and other cool things I found (click on the photos to see a larger version):

This is my great-grandfather, Arthur Walter Scheiber, in 1931.  I’ve often wondered how my ancestors fared during the Great Depression, and this gives me a clue.  Art was a railroad worker for most of his life, but this photo seems to indicate that he may have also sold used cars on the side for a period of time.  The back reads, “Dad’s pal Grimm calls this ‘Scheiber’s Breadwagon.’ He (Mr. Grimm) has this picture right over his desk.  He sure likes my dad,” in Art’s son’s handwriting.

This is my grandpa, Donald Arthur Scheiber, in about 1918.  That’s his mother’s handwriting on the photo at the top—it says: “Donald & Sport[,] Aunt Martha’s house.”  Sport the Dog appears in a number of photos labeled “Aunt Martha’s.”  He was probably Martha’s dog.  Some of those pictures include people I don’t recognize at all, but Sport’s presence gives me some clue that they’re connected to Aunt Martha’s branch of the family.  That’s a huge help when you’ve got photos of unknown people.  Don’t discount the value of identifying the pets in your family photos!

This is my great-great-grandfather, Frank Scheiber.  His line is the one on which I’ve done the most research, so I’m fairly confident I have all of the family’s geographic moves documented.  The interesting thing about this photo, though, is the photographer’s stamp.  You can’t see it very well here (because no matter what I did, it just wouldn’t scan well), but at the bottom it says, “J. Cole, Carrington, North Dakota.”  Since my research (so far) indicates that Frank and his family never lived in North Dakota, I’m curious.  What was he doing there?  Was he visiting friends or relatives?  Was he looking for land?  Was he on some sort of business trip?  I don’t know yet, but I’ll definitely be looking in and around Carrington for connections to this family.

The woman in this photo is my great-grandmother, Severina Elizabeth Nelson.  The older boy next to her is her brother, Allert B. Nelson (yes, it’s “Allert,” not “Albert”).  The younger boy is their half-brother, Clarence Nelson.  I was thrilled to find this photo, since I don’t have many of Clarence.  As I looked at it, I noticed something interesting about the pin on his lapel:

The button appears to be a picture of a woman wearing a dark-colored dress.  What does this mean?  Is it some sort of mourning custom?  I don’t know, but it’s a great clue (especially since Clarence himself is one of my most elusive ancestors…more on him in another post).

This one is my favorite.  The little boy on the steps is my grandpa, Don Scheiber.  The two women on the left are his paternal aunt, Irma Scheiber, and maternal great-aunt, Martha Erickson Swanson.  The man in the suspenders is his father, Art Scheiber, and the man in the suit is Martha’s husband, Alfred Swanson.  The older woman on the right his is grandmother, Mary Leonora Holthusen Scheiber.  This photo was taken at Art Scheiber’s home at 5411 Emerson Avenue South in Minneapolis in about 1918.  What caught my eye in this photo was the service flag in the corner of the window on the right side.  Art Scheiber had a brother, Edward, who was serving in the military at the time the photo was taken.  Although I think it was a little unusual (at least at this time of the photo) for a brother rather than a parent to have a service flag, I guess it’s possible.  Alternately, it’s possible that Art’s mother was living with him at this time; she was still married to his father, but they seem to have spent some period of time living apart during this period.  But the flag shows two stars, not one.  Could another of the Scheiber brothers have served?  There’s no other evidence of that so far, and they were a little old for service in World War I…but this photo tells me I definitely need to do some digging.

I’ll be working on each of these clues in the coming months.

Next I’ll talk about some of the tools I’m finding to be useful in organizing, analyzing and sharing my family photos.

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