A Trip to the Past: Identifying places in old photos

Google Street View has been a useful tool for me to identify the location of some of our old family photos. However, it didn't help me identify the school in Glendale, California, where my mother posed with her Girl Scout troop. I've always been fascinated with this particular photo, as my mother loved her Girl Scout troop and their energetic leader Bunny. Bunny even led the girls on a hike up to the Griffith Park Observatory!

They were dressed as Circus performers. One of the wagon in front belonged to my mother's family.

I recalled seeing a street number on the building in the photo, but I didn't think to look at a city directory. Fortunately, someone on Facebook helped me identify the school as Columbus School. This person used a city directory to identify the school. 

Upon further research, I discovered that Columbus School was founded in the 1890s with only 30 students, and has been rebuilt and added on to multiple times since. The buildings in my mother's time dated back to the 1920s, but the school was rebuilt again in 1949 and no longer bears any resemblance to the school my mother attended in the 1930s. Therefore, Google Street View would not have been helpful in this case.

I was also unsure where a mission photo was taken. My mother's family often visited both the San Gabriel Mission and the San Fernando Mission, but I wasn't sure which one it was. I visited the San Fernando Mission for the first time yesterday and confirmed that it was the one in the photo. I could have used Google Street View or online photos to identify the mission, but it wasn't necessary in the end.

Old family photo of the San Fernando Mission

Taken yesterday

Taken yesterday

The Forgey family, my mother's family, frequently visited the mission in the 1930s when they lived in Glendale. My mother particularly loved Brand Park, which is located across the street. During my recent visit to the San Fernando Mission, I was unable to walk around the park due to Quinceañera photo shoots, but I still enjoyed the beautiful gardens there.

On a side note, Bob Hope and his wife Dolores are buried in a garden at the mission. 

As I walked around the mission grounds, I felt a deep connection to my family's history in California. It was a poignant reminder of the memories and stories that have been passed down through the generations, and I feel grateful to be able to continue learning about and exploring my family's past.

Dealing with Old Family Photos/Sorting, Scanning, and Identifying people

     

Preserving family memories is a precious and essential task that helps us connect with our past and pass on our family history to future generations. Old photos in boxes and albums are a treasure trove of memories, but they can also be overwhelming to sort through and organize. Recently, I decided to tackle the task of scanning and organizing my family's old photos, and in the process, I learned a few things that might be helpful for others undertaking the same task.

The first thing I learned was to organize the photos chronologically before scanning. I made the mistake of scanning photos haphazardly, and I'm currently arranging them online in chronological order. It's much easier to have them in order beforehand, as it saves time and effort. Also it's best to save scans as a .tiff (for more advice on scanning photos I recommend listening to this 2018 RootsTech video).

If you are going to remove photos from an album it's important to scan the pages before removing them. The order they are placed in albums is generally chronological. Also photos glued into albums may have identifying information written next to photos. Unfortunately someone removed all my maternal grandparents' family photos from the albums and the identifying information on some of the pages was lost. 

Lucky that my paternal side didn't removed all photos from the family album

Another important tip is to look at the back of the photos as you take them out of albums, and look carefully for dates. Many old photos have dates or identifying information written on the back, and this can be invaluable in organizing them. I also discovered that some of our family photos from the 1930s had a faint date stamped on the back that I had overlooked previously. Additionally, some photos had black backing because they were cut out of a photo album. So, I'm carefully removing the backing from some of the photos I can't identify in case there is writing on the back.

Stamp on back of photo says 2 Mar 1932

When dating family photos, it's essential to use research information regarding friends and relatives to see who would most likely be in your family photos during a specific time period. This can help you narrow down who is in the photo and when it was taken. I also found it helpful to search for photos or relatives online to find more family photos to match them with photos I couldn't identify.

I found the photo on the left posted by cousins online. I had a copy of the photo on the right which wasn't identified. The photo on the left is identified and helped confirm my father's aunt Mary is in the unidentified photo. 

For identifying people in old photos, photo recognition software can be a valuable tool. However, it's essential to keep in mind that siblings can look very much alike, and even in the 90% similar range. In most cases, a score of 90% would be the same person, but it's important to eliminate the possibility of lookalike close relatives. Also, these programs can have difficulty identifying some people as they age.

Sometimes you can find descriptions of wedding attire in a newspaper if you can't identify wedding photos. The photo below is described in a wedding announcement. So we know this photo was taken in 1948 at the wedding of Bertha Salamon her cousin. 

In conclusion, organizing old family photos can be a challenging and time-consuming task, but it's worth the effort to preserve family memories for future generations. By organizing the photos chronologically, looking at the back of the photos for dates, using research information, searching for additional photos online, and using photo recognition software, you can make the process more manageable and enjoyable. Remember that every photo has a story to tell, and preserving those stories is a gift to future generations.