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Geolocating old photos
- 52 Ancestors 2026, week 35: A spot on the map
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I recently shared some seaside snaps from my great uncle's photo collection.
I often look at photos and wonder exactly where they were taken, except I don't have the skills of GeoWizard when it comes to geolocating a photo. Instead, I have to live with just using photos from the same batch for context, the few captions that were added to photos, and a little bit of reverse image searching. Or just cheat and use my knowledge, especially when they're photos from my home area.
A bittersweet week
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This has been a bittersweet week. On Thursday I won a directorate award for turning complex data into an impactful narrative about our operations, and yesterday marked 15 years since I started my Cancer Research UK journey.
Oh, I do like to be beside the seaside!
- 52 Ancestors 2026, week 28: Leisure time
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After my great uncle Jack died in 2021, a whole stash of photographs, negatives and slides were found in various places around his house - even suitcases stashed full of them under a bed.
As the "family archivist", as my dad called me, I was tasked with scanning them all. It was a task that took a couple of months but, 3,200 files, 8.5GB, later, we were able to save and share them with the family.
"What's that got to do with the seaside?!" I hear you ask. Well, going through them revealed an abundance of seaside snaps.
The Birth and Baptism Book-keeping Blunder
- 52 Ancestors 2026, week 9: Conflicting clues
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During my most recent rekindling of interest in my family history, I noticed that I didn't have an exact date of birth for my 2x great-grandfather, William Hearn, just a quarter date from the birth indexes of Q1 1840.
I like to get as much detail as possible about my direct ancestors, including copies of BMD certificates where possible, so I immediately thought this was unusual.
I then spotted I'd previously written in the notes:
Prev birth date noted as 3 March 1842. Birth index overrides that - unless there was another William?!
Bringing my great uncle's photos to the Fediverse
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After my great uncle Jack died a few years ago I was given the task of scanning the thousands of photos he and his wife Mary had in their collection.
Read more: Bringing my great uncle's photos to the Fediverse
Hi, I'm Chris. I run the online shop for one of the UK's largest charities.
