How to Use Google Photos for Beginners

by | Sep 4, 2020 | 01 What's New, Elevenses with Lisa, Google, Google Photos | 1 comment

Elevenses with Lisa Episode 23 Video and Show Notes

Live show air date: September 3, 2020
Join me for Elevenses with Lisa, the online video series where we take a break, visit and learn about genealogy and family history.

Google Photos for Beginners

Today’s Topic: Google Photos for Beginners

Have you thought about using Google Photos but just weren’t sure how it worked or where to start? This video webinar will answer your questions and give you the confidence to use it effectively. In this introductory tour to Google Photos we will answer the questions:

  • What is Google Photos?
  • Is Google Photos private?
  • What features do I get with Google Photos?
  • How does Google Photos storage work? (Is Google Photos free?)
  • How do I start using Google Photos?
  • How do I upload my photos and videos?
  • How to search and retrieve photos and videos in Google Photos
  • How would Google Photos benefit genealogists, archivists and others?

Watch the video and follow along here with the show notes. Genealogy Gems Premium Members can download a PDF handout of these notes in the Resources section below.

What is Google Photos?

Google Photos is a free Cloud-based photo and video sharing and storage service. You can use the website on your computer and download the Google Photos app to all of your mobile devices.

How to Get Started Using Google Photos

Visit the website, and download the mobile app.

  • Website: https://photos.google.com/
  • Mobile: Search in your app store for the Google Photos app and download.
    (May appear and behave differently on iPhone, Android, or Google Pixel phone, etc.)

Log in to each device with your Google account. If you don’t have a Google account, you can set it up for free. You will use this same account with all Google tools and products.

  1. Sign up for a free Google account.
  2. Sign into each device with this same account.
  3. Google Photos can synchronize your photos between devices.

Google Photos Privacy

It’s understandable to be concerned about the privacy of your photos and videos. Here’s what you need to know about Google Photos privacy:

  • Your photos are only available to you
  • Your account is secured by your personal password
  • Your photos are not uploaded to the Internet or searchable with Google.com
  • Read the Terms of Service

Google Photos Features

There are a wide range of great features, some of which may not be obvious at first. Google Photos features include:

  • Massive storage (allowing you the option to free up space on your devices)
  • Reliable backup
  • Powerful search and retrieval
  • Facial recognition
  • Object recognition
  • Text recognition (OCR)
  • Organization
  • Sharing and creation tools

Google Photos Storage

You have two options when it comes to your Google Photos storage plan:

  1. Free version called High Quality
  2. Low cost subscription to upgrade photo storage capacity called Original Quality.

Let’s take a closer look at these two storage plan options.

Option #1: High Quality

  • Free
  • Unlimited storage
  • Image compression (takes up less storage space)
  • Photos (Larger than 16 Megapixels (MP) resized to 16MP. Good quality prints up to 24” x 16” meet most needs)
  • Videos (If higher than 1080p then resized to HD 1080p)

Option #2: Original Quality

  • ($) Upgrade
  • No compression of photos or videos.
  • Uses the 15 GB of free storage in your Google account. This storage cap includes everything you have saved in Gmail, Google Drive, and all Google apps.
  • When you hit storage limit: Option to purchase additional storage called Google One.

Visit Google One to get all the latest information about plans and features.

High Quality versus Original Quality can be a bit confusing to remember. It may help to think of it this way:

 High Quality (FREE)
compressed but still high quality and printable.

 Original Quality ($ Storage)
Stored at original size. Larger sizes take up more storage space.

Google Photos Back Up and Storage Benefits

Considering the volume of photos and videos we take these days with our phones, and the volume of old family photos we have digitized, storage is a pressing issue. Google Photos can help because:

  • It can relieve the storage burden on your phone by giving you a place to store your photos. You can then elect to remove them from any of your devices if you wish.
  • The ability to upload, search, organize, edit and share your photos from any device.
  • If you lose or break your phone, your photos are stored on the cloud and can be accessed and downloaded again on any device that is signed into your Google account.

I strongly believe it is important to have multiple backups. So while I see Google Photos as one of my backups, all of my important photos and videos are on my computer which is backed up to the cloud. I use the Cloud backup service Backblaze and have for many years. If you decide to try them (and they usually offer a 15 day free trial here) , I do appreciate it if you use my link. We are compensated at no additional cost to you, and that helps make this free show and show notes possible.

How to Upload Photos to Google Photos

There are two ways to add photos from your computer:

  1. Click Upload at top of the page.
  2. Drag and drop photos onto the Google Photos screen.
How to upload photos to Google Photos computer desktop

Drag and drop photos into Google Photos

When using the Google Photos App on a mobile device:

  1. Tap your face in the upper right corner of the screen (your account)
  2. Tap Photo Settings
  3. Turn on Back Up & Sync.
  4. I recommend turning off Use cellular data to back up photos / videos.

Also in the Settings you will find Manage device storage. You can opt to have the original photos and videos removed from your device once they are uploaded to Google Photos. This will free up space and manage the amount of storage the app uses on your device.

How to Delete and Archive Your Photos in Google Photos:

  1. Click to select the photo or video (you can select one or multiple) on your computer or tap the photo in the app.
  2. Click / tap the trash can icon.

Searching Your Photos and Videos in Google Photos

You can search your photos and videos for:

  • People & Pets
  • Places
  • Selfies
  • Screenshots

For example, type the word Selfie into the search field and Google Photos will retrieve all of the photos that were taken as selfies.

You can also search your photos and videos for:

  • Recently added items
  • Videos (Type the word Videos into the search field)
  • Favorites
  • Names
  • Dates (Find photos based on when they were taken. For example, you can search October 2019 through December 2019.)

Facial Recognition in Google Photos

After initial set up your backup, Google Photos starts to identify and group faces that are the same.

Check your Settings to ensure the feature is activated: Settings > Group similar faces > slide the Face Grouping button to the “on” position.  It might take a few hours or a few days from your initial setup for this feature to activate. It depends on number of photos and your WiFi connection.

how to turn on facial recognition in Google Photos

Group similar faces in Google Photos

Searching for photos and videos that include certain people (faces) is very easy to do.

  1. Tap in the search box
  2. Tap a face to see all photos for that face.

You can Show and Hide Faces and include or exclude Pet Faces in the Settings.

Keep in mind that facial recognition, and object and text search aren’t (and realistically can’t be) perfect. However, it improves every day thanks to machine learning. The Google Photos of today is more accurate than when the service was first launched.

You can help train Google Photos to more accurately identify faces in photos by adding names to the faces that you know. You can also answer the questions that Google Photos poses regarding whether two faces are the same or different person.

Object Search in Google Photos

You can search for objects that appear in your photos and videos. Simply type in the word that represents the object. The example I used in this video was: Wedding Dress

Notice that this search retrieved content that included weddings and dresses. In order to narrow in on strictly content where someone is wearing a wedding dress, I put quotation marks around the phrase: “Wedding Dress”

I also searched for Typewriter. This retrieved content that featured a typewriter predominately and even when a typewriter simply appeared in the background. It also found videos where a typewriter appeared briefly.

Text Search in Google Photos

Searching for words will retrieve any photo or video in Google Photos that mention that word. There are countless uses for this as a genealogist. In the example I showed in the video, photos of tombstones can be retrieved simply by searching for the surname that appears on the tombstone. This text recognition applies to all types of text including newspaper articles, signs and more. Again, we must keep in mind that Google Photos isn’t perfect and will have difficulty reading text that is unclear.

Create New Content in Google Photos

Google Photos creates fun projects and content using the photos and videos in your account including:

  • Photo Collages
  • Videos
  • Short Animations
  • Stylized Photos

The content Google Photos creates can only be seen by you. It is not public. You decide whether to keep it, share it or delete it.

I show an example in this session of creating a video by selecting a theme, and a face. Google Photos did the rest by retrieving and assembling the photos chronologically and adding appropriate music! You can download these projects to your computer, and share links too.

Resources

Premium Members: Download the show notes handout

Premium Members: Watch the Premium Video Solving Unidentified Photo Album Cases available with your Genealogy Gems Premium Membership.
From Debra H: “Your topic is so on track with me. I have been scanning old photos. What a great delight to see your Solving Unidentified Photo album Cases. It was perfect. Thanks!!”

Recommended reading: The Genealogist’s Google Toolbox by Lisa Louise Cooke (chapter 10 Google Photos)

The Genealogist's Google Toolbox Third edition Lisa Louise Cooke

Available in the Genealogy Gems Store

Live Chat Q&A with Lisa

From Gwynn: Does Google Photos have a way to share with a link?
Answer: Yes. In the video you can see how to do on a computer. On an iPhone: tap the photo, tap the Share icon, tap Share to, then tap Create link

Question: ​If you share the link on social media they can’t change it (the photo) right?
Answer: Correct. 

From Kathy: With photos in the Cloud with Google Photos, can you tell the phone’s iCloud to disregard backing up your photos since you already have them in Google Photos?
Answer: Look at Settings > General > iPhone Storage> Disable iCloud Photos

Kelli: If I delete a photo on my phone does it delete from Google photo?
Answer: It depends exactly what you mean.  If you delete the photo from your phone’s camera roll, no, it does not remove it from Google Photos. If you remove it from the Google Photos app on your phone, then yes it will remove it from Google Photos on your computer as well. 

From Retta: Can you put a PDF on google photos?
Answer: No

From John: What add-on do you use to highlight your cursor? (in the video) 
Answer: I use this software. 

From Kathy: ​Is this good for sharing albums with family?
Answer: Yes!

From Natalie: Is there a limit of how many photos you can put in an album?
Answer: Currently 20,000 photos and videos. 

From C: Synchronize means it downloads to all devises?
Answer: Yes, the photos and videos will be available through all of the devices in which you are signed into the same Google Photos account. 

From GeneBuds: How do I access archive?
Answer: On a computer: You’ll find Archive on the left side of the screen under Library.  On a phone: Tap Library in the menu at the bottom of the screen and then tap Archive. 

Sarah: Somehow I have several copies of the same photo. Will Google photos help me sort those out so I can delete duplicates?
Answer: My understand is that Google Photos can detect identical duplicate images. If you already uploaded a photo to Google Photos, it will not re-upload the same photo. It will skip uploading that photo. It may look like Google Photos is uploading the photo again, but it isn’t. It’s just running it through identical duplicate detection. 

From John: Where in Settings is “Group Similar Photos”? Does it vary by provider (like AT&T, Verizon)?
Answer: Look for Group Similar Faces in the Settings. 

From Cindy: So if it recognizes faces at all ages, how might you use to help see if your unknown pics are who you might think they are?
Answer: I cover this in depth in my video Solving Unidentified Photo Album Cases available to those with Genealogy Gems Premium Membership. I also cover it in my book The Genealogist’s Google Toolbox. 

From Karen: What about trying to identify unknown photos of ancestors from an old album? Can you put them on a google search that goes out on the internet to see if anyone else has identified that person? In addition to my previous answer, watch the free YouTube video How to Use Google Chrome to Identify Old Photos and Images for Genealogy and Family History.

From Kelli: ​If they are on google photos only, how do you print them, say at Costco?
Answer: You can order prints from the For You section of Google Photos. Check the Costco website because I think they can coordinate with Google Photos. 

From Cathy: Can I give one person more than 1 name? Like Lucy Haley and Mother Cline?
Answer: In the same name field. You can’t assign two completely separate names. If you include both names in the field you will be able to search for either one and retrieve the photo. 

 

 

 

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How to find newspapers in Google Books for free

by | Jan 18, 2023 | 01 What's New, Google, Newspaper | 8 comments

Show Notes: Google Books is known for having millions of free digitized books. But did you know that it’s also packed with hidden old newspapers? Since newspapers don’t typically appear in your initial search results in Google Books, I’ll show you two ways to filter down to only newspapers. Plus I’ll also show you some of the most effective ways to quickly find the right ancestor and the right article.

Watch the Video

Show Notes

Downloadable ad-free Show Notes handout for Premium Members. 

Old newspapers are a tremendous resource for family history information. One of the most surprising places that you can find old newspapers is Google Books. However, newspapers don’t typically show up in the general searches we run at Google Books. It’s important to use specific strategies designed to effectively and find what you’re looking for.

We typically think of Google Books as a place where you look for books. However, we really need to change our thinking on that. Think of Google Books as a place to find printed material. At Google Books you could find not only books, but printed newspapers, catalogs, almanacs, magazines, anything that would have been published on paper. Google Books catalogs all the printed material it finds, and digitizes that which isn’t under copyright restrictions. That means that it’s more common to find older newspapers, books and so on that are digitized and searchable.

Dealing with Too Many Results

I love finding articles like this one about my husband’s grandfather, Raymond H. Cooke.

newspaper article found at Google Books

You can find newspaper articles like this at Google Books.

Newspapers clearly offer a lot more than just obituaries. You may be able to find all kinds of articles on what was going on in their life and their community.

We start searching at the Google Books homepage. There are a couple of different ways to find Google Books. You can just google Google Books, or you can go directly to the URL https://books.google.com/.

At Google Books, you can start by typing in an ancestor’s name such as Raymond H. Cooke, or topic of interest. What you will typically see is a list of books, many fairly recent, but no newspapers. In fact there will be typically be an abundance of results, many of which are not a good match. But don’t worry, we can improve these results.

Better Newspaper Results with Quotes

One of the easiest ways to fix this situation is to go back up to the search box and put quotes around the full name. This tells Google Books that I want this exact phrase (name), spelled the way I spelled it. This prevents us from getting results that contain the words but not within the context as a whole name. It also ensures that Cooke will be spelled with an “e”. Without the quotes we get too many non-matching results. Most included one or more of the words, often separate from each other, and some weren’t even spelled the way I spelled the name.

As you can see, using quotes is very effective at reducing unwanted results. However, we can do even more to improve newspaper search results at Google Books.

You’ll notice that most of the results you receive are books, some of which may be digitized and some that are not. What you don’t see typically are newspapers. So, our next strategy will fix this and give us only newspaper results.

Filtering to Only Newspaper Results

It might seem logical just to add the word newspaper to your search query. However, this doesn’t work. Google looks for the words in the text of the material. It doesn’t look at the word newspapers and understand that it’s a type of material.

However, Google Books does give us ways to filter results down to only newspapers. On the search results page you will see a filter menu below the main menu of tabs. If you don’t see it, click the Tools button.

Notice that Any Document is one of the filters. That means that right now our results are showing all types of documents that meet our search criteria including books, catalogs, magazines, newspapers, etc. Click that drop-down menu and select Newspapers. This will display only newspaper in the search results.

At the top of the results list you’ll see exact matches to your query. Sometimes, if there aren’t a lot of matches, Google will then remove the quotes you used, and show you additional results that match without quotes. So several pages of matches doesn’t always mean that they all match exactly. But the good news is, all the exact matches will display first.

Search Name Variations

My example of searching for “Raymond H. Cooke” is very specific. In order to find all the possible articles that mention Raymond, I will need to expand my search to include the name variations that might appear in the papers. Here are just a few examples:

  • “Raymond Cooke”
  • “Ray Cooke”
  • “R. H. Cooke”
  • “Raymond H. Cook” (because it’s very possible a spelling error could be made in the newspaper)

Another Way to Filter to Only Newspapers

Google Book’s Advanced Search is another way to filter down specifically to newspapers. It’s not as easy to find or use as the Tools menu, but it can prove very helpful.

There isn’t a link to Advanced Search on the Google Books home page. There are three ways to get to it.

#1 Use the URL

You can use the URL, but it’s not easy to remember. https://books.google.com/advanced_book_search   A nice solution is to go there with this link and then add it as a bookmark in your web browser bar.

#2 Google Google Books Advanced Search

The easiest way to find the Advanced Search page for the Google Books is simply to google it.

#3 Any Google Books Catalog Page

The Advanced Search link appears in the search box on the catalog page of all items in Google Books. To find the page, run a search (it doesn’t matter what item you search for) and click the book or other item to open it. If the item is “full view” or “preview” you’ll need to close it. You can do that in the most recent version of the Google Books user interface by clicking the X in the top right corner of the page. This will then display the catalog page for the item, and you’ll see the Advanced Search link in the search field.

The Advanced Search page provides you with a special form. You can use this to run your search as well. You can type the names or phrases that you want to be exact in the Exact Phrase field. Best of all, in the Content section you can click the button for Newspapers to filter your results only to newspapers.

So already, we’re quickly finding newspapers within this massive catalog of over 25 million items in Google Books. I have a few more suggestions of ways to find what you’re looking for in newspapers specifically.

Adding Location to Search

If you want to be look for ancestors in Google Books, it really helps to add a location.

When you look at the search results, you’ll notice that it doesn’t give you a location in the result’s short  descriptive paragraph (called a snippet). That makes it a little more challenging to be able to figure out if the items is talking about the right person. Where our ancestors lived is part of what sets them apart from everyone else by the same name. The result usually doesn’t tell us even where the newspaper was published. Try adding the name of your ancestor’s town, county or state to your search query.

Adding Timeframe to Search

While the snippets on the results page show the date of the item, we might have a lot of items to look through. It would be nice to narrow it down to items published during your ancestor’s lifetime. It’s not to say that there might not be a newspaper article published after an ancestor’s death, but it can help to start by first just searching during their lifetime.

On the initial results page, make sure the Tools filter menu it turned on. You’ll find Anytime in the filter menu next to Any Document. Click the Anytime drop-down menu. Here you can select a century. Click Custom Range and enter the years. For example, 1865 to 1930. This will filter your results list down to newspapers published between those years. It’s another great way to filter out results for other people with the same name who didn’t live at the same time. Filtering for both timeframe and the location can really help you zero in on the right person.

The Source of the Newspapers at Google Books

Google Books has not always had newspapers as part of their collection. The digitized newspapers found there today come from the old Google News Archive. This was a newspaper digitization project that was discontinued several years ago. In the last few years they’ve been adding the collection to Google Books. And now with the new Google Books user interface, they are easier to search and use than ever before.  

The old Google News Archive can be found at https://news.google.com/newspapers. This old website can come in handy if you’re not sure if Google Books has the issues that you need of a particular newspaper title.

Start by going to https://news.google.com/newspapers and click the letter at the top of the screen that corresponds to the first letter of the first word in the title of the newspaper. For example, if you want to check to see if they have The Lawrence Daily Gazette, and if so which issues, you would click “L”. If you find the newspaper the website will also tell you how many issues are in the collection and what dates they cover. Then you can head to Google Books and search on the title.

It’s possible that Google may have added additional issues since the old Google News Archive closed. You can check this at Google Books by searching on the title and using the Any Time filter to specify the years.

Start Searching for Newspapers at Google Books

Now you can find newspapers at Google Books quickly and efficiently. I hope you’ll leave a comment and let me know about the article that you find!

Resources

Downloadable ad-free Show Notes handout for Premium Members. 

 

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