In this virtual event, Crista Cowan addresses the common challenge of identifying unknown people in inherited historic photographs. The video’s key objective is to provide viewers with effective strategies and Ancestry tools to manage their photo collections and accurately identify unknown individuals, allowing researchers to go more in depth with their family trees and preserve invaluable family stories. Crista shares her own experiences with inherited photos, highlighting the potential for discovery and the emotional impact of lost or unidentified images.
This session guides researchers through practical steps for photo collection management and identification. Crista begins by emphasizing the importance of maintaining the original organizational system of inherited photos to preserve contextual clues and suggests interviewing family members to gather initial identifications. An important recommendation is to digitize all photos as soon as possible to protect them from fragility, natural disasters, and accidental disposal. Crista also stresses creating multiple digital copies (cloud, external hard drive, computer) and sharing access with family. Crista then dives into the practical applications on Ancestry, demonstrating how to upload digitized photos, manage them in the media gallery, attach them to specific individuals, and add descriptive metadata like dates and locations. A significant highlight is the introduction of Ancestry's Face Match feature, an AI-powered tool designed to suggest potential matches for unknown faces in photos by leveraging existing identified photos on Ancestry. Crista provides comprehensive advice on identifying unknown individuals through contextual clues within photos, including clothing styles, cars, buildings, and knowledge of family surnames and locations, while advising against tagging individuals until the researcher is confident. Crista also touches upon leveraging Ancestry ProTools for specialized research goals, like identifying military comrades.
Chapters:
- Introduction & The Photo Dilemma
- Collection Management: Preserve Original Organization & Family Knowledge
- Digitization & Preservation Best Practices
- Uploading & Managing Photos on Ancestry
- Identifying Unknowns: Ancestry's Face Match Feature
- Identifying Unknowns: Contextual Clues & Research Strategies
- Q&A & Concluding Thoughts
Try out Face Match on Ancestry today to see if you can identify any unknown individuals in your family photos!