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Monday, March 2, 2015
Learn about your antiques and collectibles with Georgia Caraway depend totally on the city imprinted on the photo. Photographers often took their equipment via train, wagon, or automobile to towns other than their home-base studio. 2. Can you identify the time period of the photograph by the ages of the subjects, the style of clothing, props (furniture), hairstyles, interiors of houses? Look for a favorite book, toy or some This is a wonderful time of year to get in your other personal object. car and take that genealogical trip that you have 3. Ask relatives about the people in the been planning to do for years. It is a good time photographs or their settings. Write down any to visit and interview relatives, perform research hints about who they think the subject might be. in libraries, explore cemeteries, visit courthouses 4. Measure the photograph. The size of the and locate old family photographs. photographs can indicate time periods when specific sizes were popular. Cabinet cards were As we search for the facts about our relatives mounted on a card and typically measured and ancestors, we should research the 4.25x6.5 inches and were popular from about photographs that we collect. How many times 1866 to 1900. Cartes-de-visite were also card have you heard about people throwing old mounted, but were smaller, typically 2.4x4 photographs into the garbage or placing them in inches. They were introduced in the mid 1850s garage sales or flea markets because they could and were popular until almost 1900. Other types not be identified? of photography such as ambrotypes, daguerreotypes, tintypes and postcards also give I suggest that if photographs are part of your clues as to timeframe. A previous column ancestral archive, even if they are not identified, covered all of these types. save them. Photographs can be compared for 5. What is the condition of the photograph? Is likenesses and perhaps with time and research, it falling apart, torn, or faded? Is it an original or you will be able to identify the subjects. a photocopy? Consider scanning photos that are in poor condition so as to preserve the image Here are some helpful tips to the process of before any more damage is done. identifying and cataloging family photos: 6. If you are not in possession of the original, 1. Besides the human image, what other who has it? If it is in the possession of a relative, identifying clues are there in the photographs. museum, or library, find out what their Are there any notes, dates or locations procedures or feelings are about allowing you to somewhere in the photo? Check the back and have it duplicated or scanned. the bottom of the photo for imprints of the photographer. Since this was a form of There are several websites that will be most advertisement, photographers often included helpful in your search. The George Eastman their location. Normally, people went to a studio House web page contains a photographic to have photographs taken, however, don’t timeline and searchable database pertaining to
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Gifted and Talented spring nominations Parents and teachers of students in grades 1st, 3rd, 4th, and 5th - 7th who wish to nominate their child/student to be screened for possible placement in the Howe ISD GT Program for the 2015-2016 school year may pick up a nomination packet from their campus office beginning Feb. 23, 2015. Nomination forms must be filled out completely and returned to the HES or HMS office by Friday, March 6 at 12:00 noon. For more information, contact Tamela Shadden, Howe Elementary School, at 903532-3320 photographers. http://www.eastman.org Or go to http://phototechmag.com/issue/marchapril-2013. This site contains numerous examples of each type of photography along with information on the procedures, the history of photography, info on dating photos, and a photo gallery. So pack up the family and take some day trips to discover your ancestors. Dr. Georgia Caraway, former director of the Denton County Museums for 14 years, will be clearing out the building at 107 East Haning Street. It is crammed full of antiques and stuff. The sale will begin Friday March 6 at 9:00 a.m. and go into the evening and Saturday March 7 from 9 a.m. On Saturday everything will be ½ price. Caraway is opening the Howe Mercantile on Howe’s Founders Day, April 25. She has also written Tips, Tools, & Techniques: Caring for Your Antiques and Collectibles and four Denton history books.
