Glass Negatives discovered

[PattiW]

Hi,
My husband and I bought some property and discovered in an old beaten down shed some 40+ glass negatives. Does anyone know how I should store them they range in horrible conition to fairly good condition. After carefully separating them and drying them out (they where discovered in very moldy and wet boxes) I have them standing up with parchment paper separating them for now. I would also like to know how I can print the pictures and research them, maybe even post them someplace hoping someone might have more information. According to my dad these sound like they are pictures of relatives from the late 1800's. Thank you for any advice you can give on this. I was not sure where to post this as I an new to all of this.

Patti

[Steve13]

You bought property and found pics of your relatives in the shed? Did your relatives use to live there? I'm thinking a stash of glass negs would have belonged to a local photographer. A local historical society might help track down who they are or belonged to.
There is also a person on this forum who deals with preserving old photos and documents, maybe she could chime in about preserving them.

[Mike]

Depending on where you are a local university may also be a big help. If nothing else they may know who/where to go. Some times a local genealogical group can help.

[PattiW]

The property had belonged to my Aunt and sat vacant for 20 years. My dad thinks these are the negatives of his side of the family before they came to the US from Poland. I really want to be able to make some prints of the negatives so that I can research who they were. This was a real treasure for us to find because we don't know anything about our family history and my dad and I have been working together to find out if we have any relatives.

[roger_ele]

An easy way to view and print the photos - if you have a digital camera photograph the plates and then invert the image .... one of many ways to photograph them with little equipment is to set a glass plate on a piece of glass suspended across two chairs or whatever is handy. Put a white board on the floor and a lamp shining on the board ... or lean the glass plate against a window with something white outside to provide even light ...

[PattiW]

Thanks! I can't wait to try these methods! Is it OK to post the pictures here?

[Kraellin]

i'll give you your pick, patti. i can move this to the historical sub-forum, or move it to the restoration forum, whichever you think is the more appropriate. since you're going to post pics, i would think the restoration forum would be better, since folks are going to want to work on them. we're compulsive that way

oh, and welcome to RP

[plugsnpixels]

Congrats on this wonderful find! For those researching family history it's a goldmine.

A flatbed scanner with a transparency lid should do the trick. I use an older Epson 1600.

As for researching your family history, once you have some names to start with, go to www.familysearch.org and have a go (free Mormon site). I've been able to trace my New England ancestors back to the Dark Ages there! And Ancestry.com (subscription site) is great for not only making similar connections but seeing the actual census, military and other documents.

Don't forget to Google any names you find as well (I learned last night that one of my British ancestors was beheaded in the 1300s...).

[PattiW]

Thanks for the welcome and thanks for the advice. I have a friend who has a scanner that I can use so we are going to geek out on that... It is the little things and I can't wait to truly see the pictures. Who knows maybe someone on here might recognize something.

You know this has rekindle my drive for wanting to get back into photography. It has been over 20 years since I did anything but now that we have the space I can build a nice little dark room and have at it...

[Mike]

For sure its a good time to build a darkroom, many folks are giving their darkroom equipment away for nothing. Wonder if there is a reason for that?

[PattiW]

When my father in law passed away we found that he had stored quite a few old 35mm cameras, different lenses, and more gadgets that I had never seen before but will have loads of fun figuring out what they are for.

[plugsnpixels]

Mike, it's because technology has moved on... ;-) I say this as someone who was in the darkroom from 1975-1997! It was great at the time but I don't miss the bunch of equipment and chemicals needed as well as the long hours involved.

And color! It's so easy on the computer. After a bit of experimenting with Cibachrome in the '70s I gave up home color processing for B&W from then out.

Patti, I would think the scanning process should be simple and you'll have more and easier control over the results. Please share some of the images with us!

[Mike]

Originally Posted by plugsnpixels

Mike, it's because technology has moved on... ;-) I say this as someone who was in the darkroom from 1975-1997! It was great at the time but I don't miss the bunch of equipment and chemicals needed as well as the long hours involved.

And color! It's so easy on the computer. After a bit of experimenting with Cibachrome in the '70s I gave up home color processing for B&W from then out.

Patti, I would think the scanning process should be simple and you'll have more and easier control over the results. Please share some of the images with us!

My comment was supposed to be a bit sarcastic which I know does not really come across to good on these type of forums. I also have way more years in darkrooms than I do with digital. Started in 1958 shooting 4x5 sheet film, mixing all our chemicals from scratch etc etc. We did black and white and color slides and prints. Finally went to digital with PS5.

One can be so much more creative in digital, there is just no comparison.