Queries and Answers: Photo Reunions

Patience wrote: I found a stack of quite good portrait photos from the late 1800's - mostly from California but also from NY, Minnesota, Indiana. Only a very few have names of whose photo it is - but almost all of them have the name of the photography studio. What would be the best way for me to seek out family members who may have lost them? One of my favorite websites is DeadFred.com. Individuals post images on the site hoping to connect with family or to find missing family photos. Over 5,000 a week search this online archive. You can read success stories in the Dead Fred blog, Relatively Speaking. The site is easy to navigate and it's free! If you want to facilitate the reunion, then join the ranks of genealogists who research the names on these abandoned photos like they're members of their own family. It's a wonderful feeling to reunite these photo treasures with their descendants.