I recently came across a Minnesota Historical Society LibGuide that really interested me. In their LibGuide, Photographs: Research & Ordering, they include a section on "images as primary sources." This got me thinking about how often we take our historical photos and really study them. Analyzing them for clues that may not be apparent from a cursory look.

Not all photos may require careful study. But in cases where photos show multiple people, an unknown background, an activity, or something else you are curious about, carefully analyzing the image should be done, just as we could analyze documents. This can especially be important when using a non-relative related photograph to provide historical or social context.

Minnesota Historical Society recommends "reading" photos by asking questions such as :

• "What do you already know about the photo?

• Photographer?
• Location?
• Date?
• Caption or other written description?

• Look at the entire photograph

• What is the subject matter? (Portrait, building, event, etc.)
• What is happening in the photo?

• Look at individual parts of the photograph

• What is in the Foreground? The Background?
• Where is your eye drawn first? What less-obvious things do you notice?
• Examine people, objects, signage, setting, time, etc...

• What does the photo say to you? To others?

• Are the people in the photo expressing certain emotions?
• Does it evoke certain emotions in the viewer?

• Why was the photograph taken, and who is the audience?

• For a documentary or journalism purpose?
• For sale (as a postcard, poster, etc.)?
• To advertise something?
• As an artistic expression?

• What decisions did the photographer make when taking this picture?

• Is it posed?
• Why did they take the photo at that exact moment? What happened right before the photo was taken? Right after?
• Did the photographer make the choices they did (perspective, focus, angles, etc.)?
• Was the photo edited, cropped, or colorized? What did that change?

• What questions do you have after viewing the photo?" [1]

Using this methodology, let's consider a historic photograph and what more can be learned from it.

Courtesy: Library of Congress. https://flic.kr/p/2mKNnx5

Take a minute, even if you know what this photo is about, to "read" the photo.

What is shown in the photo?

• A building that appears to contain a grocery-type store called Wanto Co. A sign reading Grocery can be found at the top left. Fruits and vegetables are listed in the left-side window.
• A car is parked next to a mailbox.
• A sign that reads, "I am an American."

What is the purpose of this photograph, and who is the audience? This most likely is not a family photo. It appears to be more of a documentary photo. The photographer seems to have taken it to document a moment in time.

Just looking at the photograph itself, we don't know the answer to who the photographer is or why they took the photo. Research into newspapers and city directories might provide us with a clue about Wanto Co. Adding information about the car might help to date the photo.

We may ask why a sign stating I Am An American is added. Why would this be important to announce to a community?

If we go to the website Flickr the Commons and see the page for this photo uploaded by the Library of Congress, we read that the photo was taken by Dorthea Lange, who spent some time taking photographs for the US government. The description states:

Oakland, Calif., Mar. 1942. A large sign reading "I am an American" placed in the window of a store at [401 - 403 Eighth] and Franklin Streets on December 8, the day after Pearl Harbor. The store was closed following orders to persons of Japanese descen[t]

The description tells us more. We can assume that the store owner was of Japanese descent. This information can lead us to other questions about the time period, the owner, and his store. Googling adds even more to this story, including information about the sign commissioned by Tatsuro Matsuda, whose family owned the store, and the taking of the photo. You can read more in the article The Wanto Co Family.

Start Reading Your Photos

It's said that a photo is worth a thousand words, but when we take time to read it, we may find more information than what's on the surface. What questions do you consider as you "read" your historic photographs? Have you ever used those questions to learn more about the photos?

[1] "Images as Primary Sources," Photographs: Research & Ordering (https://libguides.mnhs.org/photos/primary: accessed 1 May 2023).

Gena Philibert-Ortega is an author, instructor, and researcher. She blogs at Gena's Genealogy and Food.Family.Ephemera. You can find her presentations on the Legacy Family Tree Webinars website.

In her recent webinar, Gena Philibert-Ortega asked us if we remembered our grandmother's kitchen. Do we remember her rolling pin, dishes or the way the kitchen looked? That got me thinking about all the kitchens I have known and the relatives who filled them with warmth and good food. But as a photographer, I couldn't help but start thinking about photographs too. As part of our role as genealogists we should be proactively thinking about taking photos so that our descendants don't have to rely simply on their memories.

Here are five photos every genealogist should be taking now in order to pass down more than just memories:

1) In the kitchen

The kitchen is the heart of most homes. Great smells emanate from the kitchen as family recipes are being cooked. During holiday celebrations conversations are happening, people are bumping into each other, laughter is peeling out. Other times the kitchen is the center for hanging out. A visitor stops by unexpectedly and everyone gathers around the kitchen table for lemonade. Or family and friends relax there after a high school soccer game or theatre production.

When capturing your kitchen in a photo try to consider all the uses of your kitchen. Take photos of the cook(s) and what they are cooking. Show images of friends casually gathered around the table. Don't forget to include special items such as heirloom china or your mom's favorite bowl. I know my kids will remember me wearing an apron. I am always wearing an apron in the kitchen. While I might not want someone to photograph me in an apron it would be a really meaningful photo for my children to have. It would bring back lots of memories for them.

2) Don't forget your pets

Everyone seems to have lots of photos of their pets which they've shared on Facebook. But do you have photos of you and your other family members with your pet? Photos of interest to genealogists will also contain family members. Take a family photo with your pet when he first joins your family. Then be sure to continue taking more photos through the years. Both your family and your pet will change as time passes. You will all grow and start to look older. Also, how did you interact with your pet? Did you take your dog on hikes or summer vacations? Did you ride your horse on a particular trail? You want to be able to capture those moments so that you can show your descendants how much your pet meant to you.

3) Multigenerational photos

Perhaps the most important photo of all for genealogists is the multigenerational photo. Every time you get together as a family you should consciously take a photo of the youngest person in the family with the oldest person in the family. Those photos serve as the link between generations many years into the future. The youngest people in your family will be grateful they have photos with a relative they were only able to meet once or twice.

Also, how many generations of living family members do you currently have - three, four, maybe even five? Get a group photo showing the span of the generations as they are now. 

Sometimes people like to take these photos based on gender - daughter, mother, grandmother, great grandmother. And the same photo for the men. Other options are to take a photo with all the men in the family and another of all the women in the family. A single photo showing the entire family is certainly good too but it gets more difficult to see everyone well. And not to mention it's nearly impossible to get a good photo of everyone the more people you have in the photo.

4) Gravestone photos with people in the photo

Genealogists love to go to cemeteries to locate and photograph the graves of their ancestors. But have you ever included yourself or your family in the photo? Gravestone photos are so much more meaningful when the people we love are in the photos. And it also serves to document for future generations that we have visited the graves of our ancestors. When my children were little I took them to cemeteries quite regularly. Some of my most precious photos are of my little boys next to an ancestor's gravestone. They may not remember the specific visit but they will always know that there were there once.

Two of the Pierre-Louis boys in 2006

5) Photos of your passions

Back when I was in high school my local church was making a directory of all its members. They asked all the families to come dressed in the outfits that represented them the most. The father might be holding fishing gear, the mother in her running clothes, a son in his football uniform and a daughter with her camera gear. The photos were wonderful because they really gave a sense of who each person was.  It would be fun to create a staged photo like that just for our own family keepsake or maybe even a holiday card.

If you don't feel like staging an event like that then you'll have to keep in the back of your mind to capture these moments as they happen. Photograph your kids during scouting events such as Brownies, Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts. Head off to a sporting event and get a photo of your kids in uniform before or after the game. Take photos of family members marching in the local 4th of July parade. And don't forget that photo of your Dad in his favorite hat when he's off sailing.

By going to the effort of taking these photos now you'll provide a much richer way for your descendants to get to know you. What other types of photos would you include? What images do you want to pass down to your descendants? Let me know in the comments.

Marian Pierre-Louis is a house history and genealogy professional who specializes in educational outreach through webinars, internet broadcasts and video. Her areas of expertise include house history research, southern New England research and solving brick walls. Marian is the Online Education Producer for Legacy Family Tree Webinars where she produces online genealogy education classes. Check out her webinars in the Legacy library.

The recording of today's webinar by Masha Novak, "A Deep Dive into Deep Nostalgia™" is now available to view at www.FamilyTreeWebinars.com for free.

Got a scratch in your photograph? With MyHeritage's brand new Repair tool, that scratch, or scratches, will be gone with one click.

Here's a photograph of Clifford Hilton. Notice the scratches.

To fix the scratch I uploaded the photo to MyHeritage.

This message appeared, suggesting that MyHeritage detected some kind of damage.

I then clicked the new Repair button. Scratches almost entirely gone!

But why stop there? Then I clicked the Enhance button.

Next up, I clicked the Colorize button:

Not a bad comparison, eh?

And then, for a little fun, I clicked the Animate button:

I, too, am wondering "what will MyHeritage think of next?" But in the meantime, I'm going to go fix some scratches. Learn more here, or give it a try at MyHeritage.com/photos.

Every Friday we're pleased to offer Legacy Family Tree Webinar subscribers a new short ten minute or less TechZone video just for them! This Friday enjoy "Spark Your Creativity with Adobe Spark" by Marian Pierre-Louis. 

Spark Your Creativity with Adobe Spark

Learn to create fun composite images and graphics using your family or ancestor photos using the free Adobe Spark app.

About the Presenter

Marian Pierre-Louis is a genealogy professional who specializes in educational outreach through webinars, internet broadcasts and video. Her areas of expertise include house history research, southern New England research and solving brick walls. Marian is the host of the Genealogy Profoessional Podcast. She has also produced and hosted 100 episodes of Fieldstone Common, a history podcast. Marian is the Online Education Producer for Legacy Family Tree Webinars where she produces online genealogy education classes. Once a month you'll find her as the evening host of Legacy Family Tree Webinars.

 

See all the webinars and videos by Marian Pierre-Louis in the Legacy library.

 

Not a member yet?

Legacy Family Tree Webinars provides genealogy education where-you-are through live and recorded online webinars and videos. Learn from the best instructors in genealogy including Thomas MacEntee, Judy Russell, J. Mark Lowe, Lisa Louise Cooke, Tom Jones, and many more. Learn at your convenience. On-demand classes are available 24 hours a day! All you need is a computer or mobile device with an Internet connection.

Every Friday we're pleased to offer Legacy Family Tree Webinar subscribers a new bonus webinar just for them!   This Friday enjoy "12 DIY Photo Projects to Share Family Stories" by Denise May Levenick. If you're not a member, remember the webinar previews are always free.

12 DIY Photo Projects to Share Family Stories

Get your ancestors out of the archive and into creative do-it-yourself photo projects you can make in an evening or weekend: family history scrapbooks, yearbooks, family reunion “face books,” reproduction cookbooks, custom fabric, candles, games, and gifts. Plan your project with a Photo Project Board (template included); edit images with free online photo editors.

About the Presenter

In every family, someone ends up with "the stuff." Denise May Levenick is a writer, researcher, and speaker with a passion for preserving and sharing family treasures of all kinds. She is the creator of the award-winning family history blog, The Family Curator and author of two books on preserving family treasures, How to Archive Family Photos (Family Tree Books, 2015), and How to Archive Family Keepsakes: Learn How to Preserve Family Photos, Memorabilia and Genealogy Records, (Family Tree Books, 2012).

 

Denise inherited her first family archive from her grandmother & a trunk filled with photos, letters, documents, and lots of "miscellaneous stuff" and is now the caretaker of several family collections. She has adapted professional archival techniques to the family archive situation and shares her experiences at her website, and in her books and articles.

 

Denise is a frequent contributor to family history magazines and online publications, and presenter for webinars and workshops. She is a former high school English and Journalism teacher, and a holds a Master's Degree in English Literature.

 

How to Archive Family Keepsakes helps family historians use professional archival techniques with their own family treasures.  Numerous charts and checklists and Denise's practical guidance offer step-by-step advice for organizing, preserving, and digitizing heirlooms, and genealogy research. 

 

Denise is a member of the Association of Professional Genealogists, the Southern California Genealogical Society, the New England Historic Genealogical Society, and The Phi Beta Kappa Society. She heads the grant committee for the Suzanne Winsor Freeman Memorial Student Genealogy Grant founded in 2010 to assist young genealogists seeking to advance their genealogical education. She lives in Pasadena, California.

See all the webinars by Denise May Levenick in the Legacy library.

 

Not a member yet?

Legacy Family Tree Webinars provides genealogy education where-you-are through live and recorded online webinars and videos. Learn from the best instructors in genealogy including Thomas MacEntee, Judy Russell, J. Mark Lowe, Lisa Louise Cooke, Megan Smolenyak, Tom Jones, and many more. Learn at your convenience. On-demand classes are available 24 hours a day! All you need is a computer or mobile device with an Internet connection.

Every Friday we're pleased to offer Legacy Family Tree Webinar subscribers a new bonus webinar just for them!   This Friday enjoy "Photoshop: Filters, Plugins and Actions" by Jared Hodges. If you're not a member, remember the webinar previews are always free.

Photoshop: Filters, Plugins and Actions

Photoshop by itself is powerful, but when you add the possibilities of filters, plugins and actions, Photoshop becomes amazingly powerful. This webinar will cover the ins and outs of these added features and their potential to bring your images to life.

About the Presenter

Every Friday we're pleased to offer Legacy Family Tree Webinar subscribers a new bonus webinar just for them!   This Friday enjoy "Creative Workflow in Lightroom: The Photographer's Guide to Editing Photos The Easy Way" by Jared Hodges. If you're not a member, remember the webinar previews are always free.

Creative Workflow in Lightroom: The Photographer's Guide to Editing Photos The Easy Way

This webinar describes how to use a workflow to get the most out of using Adobe Lightroom.

About the Presenter