Old photographs are a wonderful window onto bygone days. We can see how the towns, villages and cities that our ancestors may have been familiar with had looked like when they had walked those very roads. Another way these images may be used is when a family historian is able to discover a business run by an ancestor captured by the lens of a photographer from the era. Examining the picture can often give us clues to follow up and so flesh out our family’s story. I often look for pictures for an area where I am researching a person and I also turn to old maps to explore their surroundings and then compare the historical topography with that on the modern maps for the area.