ChatGPT can help identify places in old photos
- 3 days ago
- 3 min read
I hate to be one to rave about AI, but from repairing and colorizing photos to transcribing deeds and other handwritten records, or just analyzing data, it's been a great help to me, but I recently discovered a new ability - it can also help identify places in old photos.
I'm working on a project that brought me back to a video I uploaded over 10 years ago. It's probably the worst quality video on YouTube, but it's the best I could do to preserve some old reels of movies recorded by my Dickinson family during their visits abroad in the 1930s. I bought three different antique film projectors before I found one that the films fit in and recorded it off my wall. Maybe one day I'll try to get a better copy made, but for now this is what we have.
It started with a photo from a 1931 trip to England, in which the people are positively identified, but the place is not. In this photo, from left to right are: William Croft, Emma Dickinson, Annie Croft, and Harry Dickinson, standing atop what appears to be an ancient cathedral. A gothic style spire towers Harry, my 2nd great-grandfather, on the right.
Harry Dickinson was born in Sheffield, England, in 1863, and emigrated to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 1880. Annie (Hill) Croft, standing next to him with with the red coat, was related through the Reynolds line - Harry's mother, Elizabeth (Reynolds) Dickinson was aunt to Annie's mother, Carolyn (Dickinson) Hill. Carolyn was Harry's first cousin. Therefore, Annie was Harry's first cousin, once removed, and she was Emma's second cousin. Annie's husband, William Croft, stands at left. I haven't found any record of children for the couple. Emma, Harry's daughter, in the blue dress, never married or had children. Harry died in 1935, four years after this photo, in Newark, New Jersey.
Anyway, I asked ChatGPT to identify this place, and it identified it as St Giles’ Cathedral (High Kirk of Edinburgh), in Edinburgh, Scotland, which is interesting in hindsight because my DNA is about 1/3 Scottish. This means the cousins probably weren't just visiting some foreign territory - it was their ancestral homeland and it probably means the Reynolds' were Scottish.
Next, ChatGPT prompted me to share more photos from the trip, so I shared the link to the video footage from the family's reels, thinking it was the same trip. In retrospect, I believe the video footage is from a trip Rose and John Dickinson (daughter and son of Harry Dickinson) took in 1937, after their father died.
ChatGPT couldn't seem to access the video using the link, unfortunately, but it offered to work off screenshots, so I did a Screen Record and shared several clips with the robot. What it revealed about the video is summarized below the video.
With Timestamps:
0:00 Opening footage – location not yet identified
1:30 Giant’s Causeway, County Antrim, Northern Ireland
2:21 Waterfall/rapids – possibly Aysgarth Falls, Yorkshire
2:39 Dover Harbour, Kent – Southern Breakwater
2:47 English Channel crossing, probably departing Dover
3:22 Family visit in Yorkshire – probably Dewsbury/West Yorkshire
3:58 Continued Yorkshire family visit
4:09 Yorkshire church and churchyard – exact location not yet identified
4:23 Family gravestone in the churchyard
4:30 West Yorkshire street scene – probably Dewsbury
4:39 Crow Nest Park, Dewsbury
5:00 Formal gardens
5:23 Family members posing
5:47 Cemetery near Geneva / Pregny-Chambésy
5:57 Geneva-area mountain and lakeside views
6:06 Pregny-Chambésy / Lausanne road junction, Genev
6:17 Geneva lakeside parks and international-quarter area
6:40 Brunswick Monument, Geneva
6:55 Pregny-Chambésy – probable Château de Pregny
If you're related to these Dickinson, Reynolds, etc., stay tuned as we continue to explore our relatives across the Atlantic!
Comments