Posts Tagged ‘photographs’

We wrote about the partnership between the U.S Library of Congress and the photo hosting website, flickr dot com, back in January on this Blog.

Today I was reminded by Genealogy Reviews Online about this excellent resource from an article that Tim wrote about a Blogger in Washington, DC who has looked up some old views of DC and then recreated them with modern day subjects in pose. Pretty neat.

So after taking another look and doing a “New York State” search of the LOC collection, found several, a few of which are posted here.

Catskill Farm Country – What’s not to love?

Typical Upstate New York Barn

Morner House Near Albany

Saratoga Convention 1912

Camouflage Class 1943
(At first I thought this might be the new Microsoft Touch Screen.)

To our friends of the Upstate New York Genealogy Blog. Thanks for being loyal readers. If you have a website please consider linking to this Blog and if you do, please let us know by an email with the link. The more readers the merrier.

We also encourage you all to enter comments underneath each or any of the Blog postings. The interactivity is what makes this all worth while.

To those readers that asked for the Abner Chase, Methodist Circuit Rider book, we hope that they have all been sent out. We had dealt with a couple of computer crashes and all requests were not immediately able to be filled. If you do want it and did not receive it, just let us know and it will go right out.

What do these photographs have in common? Read below…

These gorgeous images are part of a pilot program between the U.S. Library of Congress (LOC) and Flickr.com an image sharing Social Networking website.

LOC & Flickr, what a concept! But when you think of it, you realize that this could be a VERY GOOD THING!

The Library of Congress now has its own Flickr page at http://www.flickr.com/photos/library_of_congress/. The photos there are for users to tag, comment about, and provide more information on.

The LOC collection of photographs covers a lot of ground but they do have two sets of photos available: 1930s-1940s in Color, and News in the 19teens. Browsing through all of the photographs you will find all kinds of topics, from smokestacks to medals to cowboys to baseball players.

It will be noted that the catalog listing from LOC states “No known copyright restrictions.” However if you plan on using these to illustrate your book, genealogy, website, or whatever, it would be a smart thing to research that part further.

So check these images out. This is American History in pictures, and glorious ones at that!





(unyg)

Please let us know what you find that is of interest to you by leaving a comment just below this entry.

Some might say, “What the heck is Ephemera?”
Pronounced “eff-em-er-uh” (at least that’s the way I pronounce it.)

Ephemera means an item that relates to the moment. This term is normally applied to just paper, but to some it might also include items of 3 dimensional types, and something that one might hang on to for a keepsake or future reference.

Some of the items that fall into this category are; manuscripts, autographs, letters, diaries, handbills, matchbooks, photographs, broadsides, almanacs, programs, advertisements, funeral cards, posters, newspapers, tax lists, old bill heads, valentines, business cards, and on and on.

“Why would genealogists care?”

Well what about funeral cards? They would be pretty helpful right? You would get the name of the deceased, their vital dates and other clues.

Let’s discuss some of the other neat little items that just might provide some clues to your research.

Old Almanacs from the late 1700′s into the 1800′s usually had a chart of distances from location to location. Say from Albany to Buffalo, the routes would be described starting at Albany, so many miles to the first stop, which might be a village, or a tavern, or some such landmark. As you study these charts you will notice that most of the distances between locations were within one days “walk.” Most of our ancestors, I venture to say the majority of them, did not have access to horse and wagon, stage coach, Erie Canal, and so on. They walked from place to place! I have read dozens of accounts of the early settlers that came into “Upstate New York” from New England or down along the Hudson River, or up from New Jersey, and they almost always tell about coming in with their belongings on an ox-cart. That means everyone else walked!

So those distance markers would be of importance to determine where the actual dirt roads went. There were no paved roads. It was easier to travel in the winter after the snow was on, because they could pull the goods on a sledge of some kind, and the ground was not a soupy mess.

I can’t begin to tell you the importance of reading old family letters and diaries. You will learn so many details that you will never find in a court house or on a census about the families you are researching.

Use your imagination regarding any of the items listed above and see if you can’t make a determined effort to locate some of these treasures to assist you in shaking your family tree.

The Ephemera Society of America has an excellent website at www.ephemerasociety.org/, replete with many informative articles, websites of member/vendors, notices of exhibits and forthcoming shows. They publish a very professional and scholarly journal, and the membership is open to everyone.

Dick Hillenbrand – Upstate New York Genealogy – www.unyg.com

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