Unlocking the Secrets in Old Photographs

Rating:
Summary: A Useful Reference
Review: I find this book very useful. Author Karen Frisch-Ripley gives specific information on locating old photographs and using genealogical research techniques to identify the subjects pictured in them. She discusses the different types of photographs and clues in the photographs themselves that can help date them. She emphasizes the importance of carefully studying the persons, scenes, and objects in each photograph.

Rating:
Summary: One word is worth a thousand pictures: Awful
Review: The title would lead you to believe that those photos you found in the family bible may more easily be identified after reading this book. Think again. There is only one chapter, Chapter Three, that even comes close to delivering on its promise, i.e., "Dating Photographs: Clues to Identification." But even then, this chapter, like the others, is crammed with such drivel as "..a photo taken in America in 1885 cannot possibly be that of an ancestor who did not arrive until 1900." What? And another: "When you present photographs to relatives for identification purposes, you will be confronted with one of two situations. Your relatives either will or will not recognize the faces in the photos." No, I am not kidding. This is really the advice that is offered. The book is padded out with chapters such as "The First Step: Identifying the Family" and "Public Sources of Information." In a word, Awful