Image Research

The place to start when searching for an image of an individual is with the online catalog. A search there will bring up a catalog record for identified individuals in the master biographical file, the carte de visites or cabinet cards, and Daily News images.

Getting too many hits? Try narrowing your search:

• Use the drop down search to limit the search to "Photos/Prints (all)"
• Limit your search to a title keyword or subject keyword instead of general keyword

Not finding the person you want? Try making your search broader:

• Search with last name only, or with initials and last name only.
• For women, search under her husband's name. She might be indentified only as Mrs. John Doe instead of Jane Doe
• Try alternate spellings, e.g. Anderson and Andersen.
• An individual may be "hidden" in the finding aid to a particular box lot. Research Center staff may be able to suggest some box lots worth checking.

If you don't find an individual image listed in our online catalog, you may want to search more broadly. Perhaps the person appears in a group shot, but is unidentified. Maybe their photo is included in a box lot, but is not individually cataloged.

Now is the time for some creative searching. Was the person involved in a particular business or organization? Were they on a sports team? Try a catalog search for the business, organization, team, etc. requesting the boxes or folders that seem relevant.  Of course, this approach to a search requires that you would recognize the individual in a photo.