Clued-In: The Stories are in the Details
How often have you looked at a family photograph and wondered how much more you could learn about your family from this photo? Beyond who is in the photo and when it was taken are the subtler clues that give us a deeper appreciation of the people who came before us. What are the relationships of the people in the photos? What were their personal and religious choices? Why was this photo taken? What messages were they trying to convey when they sat before the photographer? There is a wealth of information to be gleaned from the visual records of our mishpocha. Coupled with our handed-down family oral traditions and our found documentation, these photo discoveries can become the basis for our family stories. But is the detail we’ve found in our photo what Sherlock calls a bisl (something to ignore) or the gantze megilla (something that tells us the whole story)?
In this informative talk, part of the “Clued-In” series on photo analysis from Sherlock Cohn, The Photo Genealogist, we’ll learn how to differentiate between a clue that is useful and furthers our study of genealogy and one that gives us little or no usable information.
Known professionally as Sherlock Cohn, The Photo Genealogist, Ava has been the go-to expert on Jewish family photographs since 2009. She is internationally-known with an ever-growing list of clients from Europe, America, Israel, Australia, Canada, Germany, UK and other countries. A Brandeis University graduate, her background includes the study of decorative arts, art history, history of photography and costume/theatre history. She has spoken at conferences for the International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies (IAJGS) since 2010. In addition to being a popular speaker and writer on the pairing of photography and genealogy, Ava is a collector of 19th and 20th century photographs of all kinds. She is a member of the Jewish Genealogical Society of Illinois (JGSI) and has explored her own roots in Canada, Belarus, Ukraine, Romania and the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Ava’s website is http://www.sherlockcohn.com. In addition, she can be reached at her email: Sherlock.cohn@comcast.net or on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/SherlockCohn