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What types of photos can I search on Civil War Photo Sleuth?
You can search for any photos of soldiers and civilians who lived during the American Civil War era.
If you are interested in a certain name or military unit, you can search for photos related to them. To search, click the "Search Photos" link on the top navigation bar. This will take you to the "Search Filters" page. You can search by a person's first or last name or based on military service details such as army, rank, branch, and regiments.
If you have a photo and you want to find other Civil War soldiers and civilians who look similar to that person, you can use the facial recognition-based identification process as well. Learn more about that here.
If you don't provide any search preferences, your search will include the entire database of photos.
How do I use the search filters?
On the "Search Filters" page, you can either 1) search for a person by name, 2) search by uniform tags, or 3) search by military service records.
If you are searching by uniform tags, you can select the tags and then click the "Suggest" button at the bottom-left side of the page. This will select the ranks and military units that correspond to the uniform information you provided. The website will automatically prevent you from providing uniform tags that may conflict with each other.
If you are ready to search, click the "Search" button at the bottom-right of the page. This will bring up the search results page.
Note: You will also see this page as part of the identification process described here.
What is facial recognition? How much does it cost?
Facial recognition is an artificial intelligence (AI) technology that can help estimate similarity between two faces. We use Microsoft Azure's Face Recognition service for identifying photos on the website. For any given photo, you can find similar-looking candidates in the Photo Sleuth database. You can learn more about how face recognition works here.
You can use facial recognition for free on CWPS. Learn more about identifying a photo using facial recognition here.
I already know the identity of the photo. Can I identify it without using facial recognition?
No. You have to follow the multi-step facial recognition-based identification process. In the first step, you will be asked if you know the identity of the person. Learn more about identifying a photo here.
This process will allow you to see if other photos of the person are already present in the database. In addition, you will also see other similar-looking candidates. We believe this will help in avoiding confirmation bias while identifying the photo.
Can face recognition match a portrait of an individual with an older or younger portrait of the same person?
It is less likely that facial recognition will identify two people as having similar facial characteristics if the two people are separated by more than ten years. If the photograph was taken in the 1920s or 30s, when the Civil War veteran was a much older man, it is less likely to be matched with a photograph of himself as a younger man.