Today's Wall Street Journal has a long article about the work of Maureen Taylor, a person mentioned a number of times in this newsletter. Quoting from the article, "With millions of Americans obsessively tracing their roots, Ms. Taylor has emerged as the nation's foremost historical photo detective."
The article goes on at length describing the techniques that Maureen uses, including these examples: "Maureen Taylor has dated a photograph to 1913 by studying the size and shape of a Lion touring car's headlamps. Armed with her collection of 19th-century fashion magazines, she can pinpoint the brief period when Victorian women wore their bangs in tight curls rather than swept back. Using a technique borrowed from the CIA, she identified a photo of Jesse James by examining the shape of his right ear."
It is an interesting story and one that genealogists should read. You also will want to view the accompanying video featuring Colleen Fitzpatrick, also mentioned frequently in past newsletters. Remember the articles earlier this year about the man sitting on a dead horse in the street? Colleen was involved in that one.
You can see both stories at http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119214969916756801.html?mod=todays_us_nonsub_weekendjournal.
NOTE: The Wall Street Journal typically leaves its articles online only for a very few days, then removes them. If you want to read this article, I'd suggest that you do so now because the article may not be available tomorrow.
You also might want to read Maureen Taylor's blog (not mentioned in the Wall Street Journal article) at http://photodetective.blogspot.com. I would especially recommend her "Watch and Listen" video that shows how she solves photographic mysteries. The video is available at http://www.photodetective.com/example_photo_detective_cases.htm.
