Identifying Ancestor Photos: Daguerreotypes

Photography arrived in the United States in 1839 thanks to Samuel F. B. Morse, an American artist and inventor. 

Genealogists often have old family photos in their possession or they find some in Great Aunt Matilda's attic. But how do we know when the photograph was taken? One method is to determine what type of photograph it is. The earliest type is the Daguerreotype.

Identifying a Daguerreotype

Morse visited Daguerre in Paris in March 1839 and observed a demonstration of the daguerreotype process. He returned to the United States to spread the news, and by the end of 1839 some larger cities on the East Coast had very successful portrait studios.

Every daguerreotype is a unique image on silvered copper plate.  Daguerreotypes are small, usually about 2x3 inches and they tarnish easily. What else makes it unique? 

Daguerreotype Cases

Daguerreotypes are fragile and were always put in protective cases. Here are a few from my personal collection.

 This is a daguerreotype from 1854

This daguerreotype of a woman in formal evening wear is from the Civil War era.

 

A rare beautifully decorated double case holding a daguerreotype on side, an ambrotype on the other 

Learn More

Watch my video Five Types of Early 19th Century Photographs

Read more about daguerreotypes on Lost Faces website

Identifying Ancestor Photographs: Ambrotypes

Ambrotype of the Treadway cousins

Genealogists often have old family photos in their possession or they find some in Great Aunt Matilda's attic. But how do we know when the photograph was taken? One method is to determine what type of photograph it is. 

Photography arrived in the United States in 1839 thanks to Samuel F. B. Morse, an American artist and inventor.The earliest type is the Daguerreotype. Ambrotypes followed, coming into use circa 1854.

Ambrotypes (circa 1854)

The ambrotype was a glass negative backed with black material, which enabled it to appear as a positive image. Patented in 1854, the ambrotype was made, packaged, and sold in portrait studios as the daguerreotype had been, but at a lower cost. The ambrotype produced a single image on glass.

From My Collection of Ambrotypes 

1861 Ambrotype

1858 Ambrotype

 

Another Civil War era ambrotype of a young woman in day dress with a typical snood and ringlets.  

Don't Be Confused 

Ambrotypes are often confused with daguerreotypes as they are similar in size and usually cased. If the image "disappears" when you move the photo around, it is a daguerreotype, not an ambrotype. Unlike daguerreotypes, which can appear as a positive, negative or reflective (mirror) image, ambrotypes are always a positive image no matter how they are held. 

Learn More

Watch my video Five Types of Early 19th Century Photographs

Read more about ambrotypes on Lost Faces website

Identifying Ancestor Photos: Tintypes

Genealogists often have old family photos in their possession or they find some in Great Aunt Matilda's attic. But how do we know when the photograph was taken? One method is to determine what type of photograph it is. 

Photography arrived in the United States in 1839 thanks to Samuel F. B. Morse, an American artist and inventor.The earliest type is the Daguerreotype. Ambrotypes followed, coming into use circa 1854. By 1855 Tinytypes had begun to replace Ambrotypes

Tintypes (circa 1855)

The Ferrotype process (tintypes) was introduced in the United States in 1855. It substituted an iron plate for glass and was even cheaper than the ambrotype. Because tintypes were placed in albums along with CDVs, they were often trimmed at the sides and corners.

Tintypes were produced in various sizes

• Full plate 6 1/2" x 8 1/2"
• Half plate 4 1/2" x 51/2"
• 1/4 plate 3 1/8" x 4 1/8"
• 1/6 plate 2 1/2" x 3 1/2"
• 1/9 plate 2" x 2 ½"
• Gem approximately 1/2" x 1"

Examples of Tintypes

Gem Tintype

9th plate Tintype

Watch my video on Five Types of Early 19th Century Photographs

Read more about Tintypes on Lost Faces website

Identifying Ancestor Photos: Tintypes

Genealogists often have old family photos in their possession or they find some in Great Aunt Matilda's attic. But how do we know when the photograph was taken? One method is to determine what type of photograph it is. 

Photography arrived in the United States in 1839 thanks to Samuel F. B. Morse, an American artist and inventor.The earliest type is the Daguerreotype. Ambrotypes followed, coming into use circa 1854. By 1855 Tinytypes had begun to replace Ambrotypes

Tintypes (circa 1855)

The Ferrotype process (tintypes) was introduced in the United States in 1855. It substituted an iron plate for glass and was even cheaper than the ambrotype. Because tintypes were placed in albums along with CDVs, they were often trimmed at the sides and corners.

Tintypes were produced in various sizes

• Full plate 6 1/2" x 8 1/2"
• Half plate 4 1/2" x 51/2"
• 1/4 plate 3 1/8" x 4 1/8"
• 1/6 plate 2 1/2" x 3 1/2"
• 1/9 plate 2" x 2 ½"
• Gem approximately 1/2" x 1"

Examples of Tintypes

Gem Tintype

9th plate Tintype

Watch my video on Five Types of Early 19th Century Photographs

Read more about Tintypes on Lost Faces website

Identifying Ancestor Photographs: Ambrotypes

Ambrotype of the Treadway cousins

Genealogists often have old family photos in their possession or they find some in Great Aunt Matilda's attic. But how do we know when the photograph was taken? One method is to determine what type of photograph it is. 

Photography arrived in the United States in 1839 thanks to Samuel F. B. Morse, an American artist and inventor.The earliest type is the Daguerreotype. Ambrotypes followed, coming into use circa 1854.

Ambrotypes (circa 1854)

The ambrotype was a glass negative backed with black material, which enabled it to appear as a positive image. Patented in 1854, the ambrotype was made, packaged, and sold in portrait studios as the daguerreotype had been, but at a lower cost. The ambrotype produced a single image on glass.

From My Collection of Ambrotypes 

1861 Ambrotype

1858 Ambrotype

 

Another Civil War era ambrotype of a young woman in day dress with a typical snood and ringlets.  

Don't Be Confused 

Ambrotypes are often confused with daguerreotypes as they are similar in size and usually cased. If the image "disappears" when you move the photo around, it is a daguerreotype, not an ambrotype. Unlike daguerreotypes, which can appear as a positive, negative or reflective (mirror) image, ambrotypes are always a positive image no matter how they are held. 

Learn More

Watch my video Five Types of Early 19th Century Photographs

Read more about ambrotypes on Lost Faces website

Identifying Ancestor Photos: Daguerreotypes

Photography arrived in the United States in 1839 thanks to Samuel F. B. Morse, an American artist and inventor. 

Genealogists often have old family photos in their possession or they find some in Great Aunt Matilda's attic. But how do we know when the photograph was taken? One method is to determine what type of photograph it is. The earliest type is the Daguerreotype.

Identifying a Daguerreotype

Morse visited Daguerre in Paris in March 1839 and observed a demonstration of the daguerreotype process. He returned to the United States to spread the news, and by the end of 1839 some larger cities on the East Coast had very successful portrait studios.

Every daguerreotype is a unique image on silvered copper plate.  Daguerreotypes are small, usually about 2x3 inches and they tarnish easily. What else makes it unique? 

Daguerreotype Cases

Daguerreotypes are fragile and were always put in protective cases. Here are a few from my personal collection.

 This is a daguerreotype from 1854

This daguerreotype of a woman in formal evening wear is from the Civil War era.

 

A rare beautifully decorated double case holding a daguerreotype on side, an ambrotype on the other 

Learn More

Watch my video Five Types of Early 19th Century Photographs

Read more about daguerreotypes on Lost Faces website

Research team uncovers lost images from the 19th century

As many of my readers know, I'm an avid collector of 19th century photographs. My website Lost Faces has published images of my collection of daguerreotypes and ambrotypes, as well as the cartes de visite and cabinet cards that I rescue from antique stores and flea markets.

Many times I pass on purchasing an old photo because it is so badly damaged it is almost unrecognizable. But that might change!

A team of scientists led by Western University in London Ontario learned how to use light to see through degradation in daguerreotypes, a form of photography popular in the early 1800s. Daguerreotypes came into being in 1839 and were the earliest type of photography.

The team of scientists used two daguerreotypes from the 1850s that were damaged beyond recognition of the subjects. They could see one was a woman, the other a man but no details were visible.

The original Daguerreotype

The Daguerreotype after the process

Read more at Research team uncovers lost images from the 19th century

Update: New Photos on Lost Faces

From the Pratt Morse Photo Album

On the weekend I added more photos to my new website Lost Faces. The Pratt Morse photo album is an amazing rescue - not only was I able to purchase two of the three Civil War era albums from this family, I was also able to save several individual cased daguerreotypes. I wish I could have purchased the third album but they were very expensive. 

Two male members of the Pratt family, Franklin Amos Pratt and Charles Pratt, were both in the 1st Regiment, Connecticut Heavy Artillery and R.S. Morse Sr may have also been in this regiment.

So far we have scanned 7 of the over 100 photos and these are online where they can be freely viewed and saved for your own personal use. I hope to have many more from this album completed and online over the next two weeks.  

Photos still in the beautiful Pratt Morse Family album

Surnames: Pratt, Morse, Morgan, Wilcox, Johnson, Pond, Stephen, Brach, Andrews, Steele, Lisdale, Wooster, Blakesly, Stevens
Locations: Connecticut, New York 

I also re-scanned several CDVs from the Kelley Family Photo album and replaced the poor quality scans with better ones.

Don't Miss My New Website Lost Faces!

Sarah (Page) Simpson 1840-1920

When I was about 11 years old, my grandmother gave me this photo of her grandmother (my great-great-grandmother), Sarah Simpson. Grandma told me it was taken in Ramsgate England sometime in the 1890s.

I was fascinated - she wore such a beautiful ornate hair piece! The gorgeous blouse or dress thrilled me with its ruffles and high collar. I couldn't stop thinking about the fact that I had part of this fine lady in me, in my blood and my genes.

I learned a lot about Sarah - widowed at the young age of 34, and pregnant with her 5th child, she was forced to work as a charwoman to feed her children. 

Not only did that spur me on to delving deeper into my British side of my family, it also sparked an immediate love of antique photos of ancestors. I thought about their lives - were they happy? Did they enjoy the same things I enjoyed? Did they get angry, or cry at the loss of a family pet. Yes those are the odd things I thought about as a youngster.

This early fascination with ancestors and photographs that captured one brief moment in their lives led to my determination to rescue and preserve as many old photos as possible. Several years ago I began purchasing entire albums of named photographs (Cartes de Visite and tintypes mostly) from the Civil War era, and offering scans of the photos to interested descendants. My dream was to one day publish them all online for genealogists to freely copy for their own personal use.

A few of my rescued Ambrotypes & Daguerreotypes

I am excited to announce my dream has come to fruition. Several years ago I was able to purchase the domain name "Lost Faces" from a woman who no longer wanted it.

This year I completed scanning and uploading approximately half of the precious albums I have rescued over the years. Every album is online with a description, a list of names, and at least a few photos from the album.

 There are 81 albums online at this point, and approximately half are complete, meaning all the photos in the albums are online for visitors to enjoy. Most albums have 50 photographs so you can see that is a lot of photos for visitors to enjoy and hopefully find an ancestor or two!

1916 Ramsgate England

As well as these wonderful album photographic treasures, Lost Faces contains dozens of single photos of groups - sports teams, class photos, and more. I also have vintage postcards for your enjoyment, and explanations of various early photograph types such as Cartes de Visite, Cabinet Cards, Tintypes, Ambrotypes, and Daguerreotypes. To top it all off I've added some brief tutorials on dating photographs through fashion, hairstyles, photographer marks and more.

Enjoy your visit to Lost Faces and feel free to download any photos for your own personal use. The only thing you cannot do is publish the photos anywhere else offline or online. Perhaps you'll find an ancestor in my rescues!

Is Your Ancestor on Lost Faces?

Have you ever wished you had a photo of a long ago ancestor? Wouldn't it be great to find out what great-grandpa Bert or great-grandma Olive looked like?

Lost Faces is a section of Olive Tree Genealogy website where I post photos from mid 1800s photo albums I rescue.

I choose albums with identified photographs so most photos have names attached. Civil War albums are gorgeous and here is a photo of a typical one.

Currently I have  70 antique photo albums online and each has from 30 to 50 photographs, so there are lots of photos and names. One might be your ancestor!

Here are a couple of examples to show you what might be found. This is a Carte de Visite taken during the Civil War

A small head and shoulders of a young man, identified by his initials.

A Cabinet Card of a young child, identified

Some albums have a great deal of information written on the album pages

If you have a few extra minutes, check out my YouTube video Five Types of Early 19th Century Photographs 

Periscope Video of Antique Photos: My Collection of Ambrotypes & Daguerreotypes

LIVE on Periscope: Antique photos: my collection of Ambrotypes & Daguereotypes. Watch the saved broadcast for 24 hours on Periscope TV at http://bit.ly/1PXcC3B

Organizing Family Photos - Creating a Plan

Today I decided the time has come to sort, scan and organize my physical photographs. I have thousands. Some are older family photos going back to 1900 from my mother, her sister, my aunt and my mother's cousin. Some are my family photos from when I was a child, and others are from my life since 1970. 

I also have my personal collection of CDVs, Cabinet Cards, tintypes, ambrotypes and daguerreotypes. I  estimated I have over 3,000 of those. 

To start with I am concentrating on my family photos. You can see most of what I have in the photo on the left.  

As you can see currently they are tossed into plastic tubs but I want to store them in archival quality boxes.

The first thing I did this morning was take a look to see what sizes of photographs I need to store. That allows me to determine the size of boxes I need and make an estimate as to how many will be required.

Then I started making my plan. First - I decided what my goal was for these photos - what is the final outcome I want? I know I want to eventually scan them all so I need one box for unscanned photos. Some have been scanned already and those are already sorted into tubs so that will be fairly quick to get into archival boxes when they arrive.

Any plan for organizing photos will depend on how you want to store them - by family groups? By time periods? By names of the person you are going to give them to? The choice is personal. I want to give some of mine to my adult children as soon as possible, others I want to keep for my grandchildren when they are older and some I want to hang on to myself.

I decided I needed 8 boxes to hold 4x6 photos, 1 box for 8x10 and 1 box for 11x14. With the 4x6 boxes I will have one box for photographs for each of my grown children, one for recent photographs I don't want to part with yet, one box for my life as a child growing up with my parents, one box for my maternal grandmother's family and one for my maternal grandfather's family. 

When my boxes arrive I will sort the photos I have already scanned and get them put away. Scanning the photos not yet scanned will be something I do in bits and pieces over the coming months.

Next week I will create an organizational plan for my personal collection of mid 19th century photos and share that. I still have to create a plan for my digitized and scanned photos so I will work on that later this week and share it here on Olive Tree Genealogy blog.

Looking for Photos of Early Black Families and Individuals in Ontario

This is a request for anyone who has, or knows of, 19th century photographs of black families living in Ontario. 

Schumacker Family of Salem Ontario

I've been approached by a historian at the ROM (Royal Ontario Museum) asking for help finding appropriate photos for a project.  

The historian is looking for early studio photos (ambrotypes, Daguereotypes, CDVs, tintypes, Cabinet Cards) as well as vernacular (candid and not posed) photos of more recent years.

The only resource I know of online is the Alvin McCurdy Collection at the Archives of ONtario. She is already using those in her study. I have sent her copies of the few that I have.

Copies of originals are acceptable for study or she is willing to purchase originals that might be for sale. Family albums are also of interest to her. If you have any photographs of Ontario black families that you would be willing to share or sell, please direct responses to me (Lorine) at olivetreegenealogy@gmail.com 

This sounds like a wonderful research project!

Identifying Early Photographs

The following article was originally written by Lorine McGinnis Schulze and published on Olive Tree Genealogy at http://www.olivetreegenealogy.com/photos/photo-types.shtml

It may not be reproduced in any way without my written consent.

Daguerreotypes (ca 1839)

Photography arrived in the United States in 1839 thanks to Samuel F. B. Morse, an American artist and inventor. Morse visited Daguerre in Paris in March 1839 and observed a demonstration of the daguerreotype process. He returned to the United States to spread the news, and by the end of 1839 some larger cities on the East Coast had very successful portrait studios.

6th plate Daguerreotype taken ca 1854

Ambrotypes (circa 1854)

The ambrotype was a glass negative backed with black material, which enabled it to appear as a positive image. Patented in 1854, the ambrotype was made, packaged, and sold in portrait studios as the daguerreotype had been, but at a lower cost. The ambrotype produced a single image on glass.

9th plate Ambrotype ca 1858

6th plate Ambrotype 1861

Next up I will talk about Tintypes, Cartes de Visite and Cabinet Cards. Also see my YouTube Video Five Types of Early 19th Century Photographs