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Lesson Three: You have a photo with an unidentified building or part of a building in it from San Antonio, Texas. Maybe only the names of a few people in the photo and an approximate date like the 1920’s or 1940’s. You can look up on the old Sandborn’s fire maps the different plats of the streets. Look first at the at census records which are public information and find out the address for the person— for example, let’s use names from someone in our forum– the bride Aunt Adela Rios Briseno and the groom Federico Garza. Look up the family to which Federico Garza belonged. You will see the street addresses. Then go to the Sandborn’s maps and look at the sketches for something that matches the photo in your possession. I have done this before with photos from clients who have only a few clues and one or two photos. I used this method to match the photo below of my Italian American ancestors the Molteni sisters and my great-grandmother Matilde Biasioli Molteni who lived at 706 S. Frio Street not far from downtown San Antonio in 1924. I used the US City Directory to cross check. I was searching to find out WHERE the photo was taken. That second wooden frame house was still standing in 2015 when I last visited San Antonio. The second photo shows the front wooden porch on Lewis Street in 1926. My mother Catherine Jane Molteni Powell is the small child in the second photo. She was born in 1924, and I approximated the photo to be taken around 1926. Sanborn Maps of Texas – Perry-Castañeda Map Collection at the University of Texas in Austin, Texas.
Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps – Texas (1877-1922)… San Antonio 1885 Sheet 2 (1.2MB) [includes The Alamo]; San Antonio 1885 Sheet 3 (1.7MB); San Antonio
