Old Wedding Photographs Lost in 1906 S.F. Great Earthquake

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Quiksilvez
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Old Wedding Photographs Lost in 1906 S.F. Great Earthquake

Post by Quiksilvez »

My grandparents who were immigrated from Trabia to San Francisco in 1902 and got married in San Jose, CA in 1904... They lost the wedding or marriage portraits during the great earthquake in San Francisco in 1906...

Anyone who had that experience, please advise me how to contact the photography studios who might still have the negatives and such...

thanks,
~Mark
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dalbino83
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Re: Old Wedding Photographs Lost in 1906 S.F. Great Earthqua

Post by dalbino83 »

Do you know the name of the photographer? If you do, then this link might help you find the negatives.

Good luck!

Donna
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Poipuo4
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Re: Old Wedding Photographs Lost in 1906 S.F. Great Earthqua

Post by Poipuo4 »

I have never done CA research, but I know with NY, you can get city directories at the NY Public library, going all the way back to the 1800s. Maybe if you go can see if CA has this type of resource for city directories and look up the names of all the photographers that were in business in SF in 1904.

The Family History Library seems like it has directories of SF since 1850

http://www.familysearch.org/Eng/Library ... umns=*,0,0

You may want to locate your nearest center at www.familysearch.org and rent the microfilm for 1904. Then, of course, you would have to compare the names with a recent directory, and if that fails, perhaps you can trace the corporation history through the CA secretary of state and see if someone took over the business. (Again, I am basing this on my research in NY and CT, I don't know CA first hand.)
http://www.celenzaheritage.com

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dalbino83
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Re: Old Wedding Photographs Lost in 1906 S.F. Great Earthqua

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I should have mentioned this in the earlier reply I gave ... you should know the chances are very very slim that the negatives survive. Negatives were created on thick glass plates in that time period, and they are heavy and fragile and take up a lot of space compared to film negatives we know today. If a company is going out of business, or moving, or paring back on storage space, they most likely would not have wanted to take the negatives with them, nor would anyone else want to take on the chore of storing them or moving them to another archive. It's one thing if the negatives showed earthquake damage, or famous people, or some other unusual topic of great interest. But studio shots of anonymous people don't have a lot of value.

Your best bet might be checking with your cousins, in hopes that their parents or grandparents got copies from the wedding couple before the quake.

Donna
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dalbino83
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Re: Old Wedding Photographs Lost in 1906 S.F. Great Earthqua

Post by dalbino83 »

I saw this article online this morning and thought of your search. Glass negatives from that era were found in someone's basement. I hope your missing negatives are found!

Donna
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