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Wednesday, November 6, 2013

Vintage Aerial Documents 25 Million Photographs

Thanks to a link from Derek Davey on Google+, I looked at a newer website called Vintage Aerial. This commercial website has an archive of over 25 million photos taken from 1963 to 2013 in 41 states.
Currently, the collection is not viewable online but they state that this will be a possible option in the future. From the map of their collection, it appears that the photos are heavily centered east of the Mississippi River and most heavily represented by photos in the north and east of the United States. There are also some significant numbers of photos in California. Some of the states have only very limited photos available.

Presently, this is how the business works:
We want to share our collection with as many people as we can. If there is an old family homestead or great-grandma’s farm in your personal history, please let our Librarians help you find a picture of it. We invite you to view the photographs our Librarians find for you, free of charge. 
If the photo stirs your memories, and we are confident it will, we simply ask that you consider investing in a family heirloom from Vintage Aerial. 
Regardless of your choice, when the Librarian finds your picture, please consider sharing with us some of your memories or family stories relevant to the photo. We will add your story to the historical record we are creating.
The cost for the photographic reproductions is rather steep, but when you consider the work that must have gone into putting this collection together and the further work it takes to identify a single farm or house and then prepare that for sale, I think the cost is understandable.

This is an interesting concept and the tie-in to family history is also interesting.


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