My Word with Douglas E. Welch

A great story on how old films, now uploaded to YouTube and elsewhere can hold genealogical resources for those researching families or general history. Also, just a great example of how to approach any research project. — Douglas

Also Check out the Update Video, where I interview a living descendant of the Lochowicz family

In this video I discuss how I was able to identify people in the film 1911 A Trip Through New York City. In one scene of the video there is a well to do looking family being driven around by a chauffeur. The license plate on the car can be clearly seen as 65465, so I wondered if I could identify them through this little piece of information.

I learned through the Federal Highway Administration that there were 81,370 auto-mobiles registered in NY by 1911. I also learned registration was published publicly and quickly found a listing for license plate 65465 in the Brooklyn Life Magazine showing a June 12th, 1911 registration E.M.F. – Mrs. Lochwicz 548 Eighth Street. The car in the video definitely looked like a 1911 E.M.F. Model 30 Touring Car, so I tried to find the family in the 1910 census and was able to find them living at 548 Eighth Street. The household consisted of six people; Head of house Florian Lochowicz, his wife Antoinette Lochowicz (listed as Antonie in the census), their children Francis, Emily, and Elsie, and a servant named Mary Moriarty.

Florian Lochowicz was born in Posen in 1871 and immigrated to America in 1890. His wife Antoinette was a distant cousin of his and she was the daughter of Konstantyn Cornelius Lochowicz and Julia Hectus. Konstantyn had immigrated in 1864, possibly due to the January Uprising in Poland. Florian worked as a barber and became very prominent because J.P. Morgan was patron of Florian’s. Florian died unexpectedly in 1918 but was worth $70,000 at the time of his death. His wife continued running the Barbershops into the 1950s and still lived at their Brownstone home in NYC at 548 Eighth Street.

We’ve all heard the stories of the Wild West. Saloon Brawls, duels at high noon, ladies being tied to Train Tracks by moustachioed gentlemen, Cowboys fighting Indians. But how true is any of this? To put it bluntly. Just how ‘Wild’ was the Wild West. Find out in this short animated simple history documentary.

In this film we look at some simple ideas to help you build on your creative photography skills. Looking at how to make the most out interesting locations and also how you can explore the world using photography.

00:08 – Overview of how I work through photography ideas while shooting
04:17 – Order, form and symmetry
09:25 – Low angle perspective
12:24 – Frame within a frame
15:20 – Close-up details
19:12 – Unexpected details, patterns and textures
22:47 – Historical recording, research using photographs
24:53 – Delicate and subtle light
27:53 – Painterly landscapes
29:24 – Colours
31:12 – Minimal photography
32:26 – Low light
36:12 – Strange and playful ideas

In 1989, a wave of revolution swept across Eastern Europe, disrupting the Communist governments of Poland, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, Hungary and of course, Romania. But how did the Romanian Revolution play out and why couldn’t Nicolae Ceaușescu or the authorities stop it like they had done previously? And why did it end the way it did? With the same people still in power and the Ceaușescu’s subject to a mock trial.

Cities grow, adapt and change, like all living things. The Library’s map collections show this in all sorts of unexpected ways, offering a vision of days gone by, of what “normal” once looked like.  We present you with some fascinating glimpses of the cities of yesteryear in this edition of the Library’s Free to Use and Reuse sets of copyright-free images.

The good news about these, if you haven’t seen them before, is that they are yours for the taking — print them out, blow them up into huge posters, use them for laptop screensavers. It’s your choice. In the past few months, we’ve highlighted classic movie theaters, genealogy, maps of discovery and exploration and so on, but there are lots more.

Read Free to Use and Reuse: Maps of Cities via Library of Congress Blog

An interesting link found among my daily reading

If you’re running low on free educational content and you’re eager to use this time to improve your craft, we have some good news. The website Photography Life hast just released all of their premium photography courses, usually $150 apiece, for free on YouTube.

The announcement was made earlier today by Photography Life founder Nasim Mansurov, who explained that he and his staff felt compelled to help out the community during these difficult times.

Read Photography Life Just Released All of Their Paid Photography Courses for Free via PetaPixel

Archaeologists found the bones of three young African men in a 500-year-old mass grave in what is now Mexico City. The chemical makeup of their bones sheds light on their earlier lives in Africa, and forensic analysis reveals hard, painful lives and young deaths.

How the dead speak

Archaeologists unearthed the mass grave in 1992 while digging a new subway line in Mexico City. Five hundred years earlier, the site had been the grounds of the Hospital Real de San José de los Naturales. The Spanish colonizers had built the hospital to treat indigenous people—that’s what “los Naturales” means in Spanish—but these three men were African, not North or Central American. Their bones radiocarbon-dated to the 1500s CE, which makes them part of an important but often anonymous group of people: the first African people abducted in their homelands and brought across the Atlantic Ocean to European colonies in the Americas.

Read The 500-year-old bones of African slaves tell a traumatic story via Ars Technica

An interesting link found among my daily reading

Already bored at home? Well, don’t you worry because the COOPH photographers do their best even during this extraordinary time to provide you with fresh ideas and inspiration. They put together a list of creative things you can shoot during your time at home. Equipment or props? They only used things that you should already have in your home, so you can start shooting right away!