Lectures from the 'Making Family History Matter' Project Extension
Click the lecture covers to view and download the presentation slides as a PDF.
Family History Methods Workshop 1 introduces you to the principle that, as family historians, we should try to identify and convey historical relevance in our research by linking what we discover to broader themes in society. Workshop 1 covers valid criticisms of family history that family historians need to work to overcome as well as the importance of producing legacy videos, the many challenges in family history research and best practice when it comes to presenting your family tree.
Family History Methods Workshop 2 focuses on challenges in family history research and how to make family history research historically relevant by linking personal stories to broader themes like migration, religion, and social change. The session covered gathering records (birth, death, marriage, census, military, immigration, probate), interpreting heirlooms and personal artefacts, and using newspapers and local histories for context. Participants received practical advice on accessing and organising records, publishing findings and creating legacy projects. The workshop also addressed the future of family history research—including digitisation, AI tools and marginalised voices—and included reflection on a homework task connecting attendees' family histories to wider historical narratives.
Lectures from the 'Dating Antique Photographs' Project
Click the lecture covers to view and download the presentation slides as a PDF.
Introduction to Antique Photographs and How To Date Them sets out the various mount types of nineteenth-century photographs and includes a lecture on the history of portrait photography. This first lecture in the series includes a history for each mount type and their key features for date estimation including daguerreotypes, ambrotypes, tintypes, cartes de visite, cabinet cards and cartes postale. Lastly, the lecture introduces Taylorian's step-by-step approach to deconstructing and dating antique photographs.
Victorian Fashion in Antique Photographs, as the second lecture in the series, builds on the first by delving deep into Victorian fashion styles, tastes and trends as a tool for estimating a date for our antique photographs. This second lecture includes a brief history of how photography developed in the twentieth century followed by a deep-dive into attire of the nineteenth century, including the items commonly and uncommonly held in nineteenth century portraits and the variety of reasons portraits were taken.
Post-Project Lecture
Antique photographs not only reveal the attitudes, customs and tastes popular in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries but bring people together through a mutual interest in ancestral research and local history. The Antique Photographs Project aimed to develop resources to guide family historians on how to date old photographs. The presentation will give a brief history of the development of photography. It will also highlight the best methods for analysing and preserving antique photographs and reflect on the project’s outputs, including a handbook, journal articles and a series of workshops developed for archivists and members of the public.