I'm not sure if I posed the question in the right way, but maybe explaining my situation might clear up the question. I've been helping my dad research a relative of mine who was an architect in the late 1800s in the United States. There are some sources out there on him, mainly just historical records of buildings that note him as the architect. But in one historical book on the "Tampa Bay Hotel", they have one single photo of a group of men, one of whom in the book is noted as being my relative. It's also noted that this is the only known photo of him.

The print of the photo is too small to make out any detail of anyone's faces, so I was trying to search for the original. I reached out to the author, who responded that she had received permission to use the photo for her book. She credited the source to a Daughters of the Revolution chapter who hold some kind of archive, but from there, nothing. No response from the chapter in the only form I've found to be able to contact them. In image and name search online, I have found 2 other postings of the same photo, but also of bad scan quality.

So in a dead-end such as this, where would an actual historian turn for their research? What kind of sources would they use? And, what is the best process for tracking down specific supporting items such as photos?

Also, I do realize that even finding the original photo, or side might not reveal anything more than the scans given by the age of the photo, but I hoping that it might.

EDITED IN ORDER TO ADD: Sorry for the mistaken title: the passage is 2 Chronicles 14:9-14.

If not, has anyone given any explanation for why not aside from "Obviously, the Ethiopians could not have sent 1 million troops into Judah"?

EDITED IN ORDER TO CLARIFY: my question is about people, of any time period, who, committed to Biblical inerrancy, tried to find remnants of the million-strong army described in 2 Chronicles 14:9-14.

Is there a historical reason we see Santa's elves as gnome-like creatures where Tolkein's elves are basically perfect humans? We don't see the same type of variation when it comes to creatures like ogres or leprechauns.

I’ve seen and heard so many depictions of it just being a land on the beach and keep going at whatever cost scenario.

I’ve been to Omaha beach as well as a lot of the war graves around Northern France and the museums and I have read that the Germans didn’t know they were being attacked at Omaha beach until the boats were pretty much upon them.

With that in mind, did the Allies anticipate such heavy resistance? Did they know there would be so many losses on the beach and many wouldn’t even make it out of their boats?

Ever since I was a kid I always knew, “hey, that’s clearly a bomb!” But never really knew why I knew it was a bomb. Where did the design of this come from?

I came across a reference from a letter from general von Gneisenau to his wife during the Napoleonic Wars stating "this battle will decide the fate of Europe " . Which begs the question; when and how did the concept of Europe and Europeans come to be? Also what decided if one was European?

It seems that in a lot of historical films and tv series sometimes in the front of the lines of troops you have a brightly dressed officer leading them into battle - wasn't this dangerous?!

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Did officers really 'lead' from the front, and if so was their a high attrition rate and at what rank did you stop going in first?

mny thks

Hi everyone! The premise of this is that in about ~5 months I'll enroll in a history course.

Today after talking with a historian I noticed I know some things, yes, but as I always feared I don't really know much – not enough to discuss an argument. Thus I think it'd be best to prepare better before enrolling in a history course. Could you give me some tips?

Also, I'd really be glad if you could suggest me some, good, history books for a neo history student.

Why did Christianity supplant almost all other indigenous religions in Europe, for example Norse Paganism in Scandinavia? Why did all these religions fade and convert to Christianity?

There are a lot stories that are told and they are very much fundamentally different. What could the the best possible answer?

This has always seemed a bit of a contradiction to me. Shakespeare has been attributed to creating many of the words we still use today but his plays are also of great importance as they provide a record of common English from a time when most other written sources were in Latin. Also if so many of his words were gibberish to his audience when they first heard them would the plays have drawn such great audiences? Isn't it more reasonable he was just the first person to record slang words instead of inventing them?

By all records I can find, George Washington won every single popular vote in states that had a popular vote in 1788. Maps commonly show the popular vote count for only Pennsylvania and Maryland, even though Delaware, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Virginia seem to also have voted through popular vote. 1792 also seems to be a similar story.

How did George Washington win 100% of the popular vote? How different were the ballots from state to state? Did Maryland and Pennsylvania actually only have George Washington on the ballot or were people actually voting for electors? If people actually chose electors rather than a candidate, when did the actual Presidential candidates begin to appear on ballots in America? Do any of the ballots still exist today?

I’m curious how the US Supreme Court changed over time and how independent it truly has been since it’s inception. I’m also interested in context into the current make up and how precedented it has been to think judges will follow the views held by those in the current two political parties.

I am currently working on a hard fantasy novel and I wanted to ask about clothing and fashion of the 16th and 17th centuries. Incorporating historical accuracies is important to me, so I wanted to get a general understanding. Thank you!

Hey r/AskHistorians, I remember a year or two ago I heard an anecdote about the Manhattan project, specifically about how initial estimates produced fears that lighting off the bomb could light the Earth's atmosphere on fire and kill everyone. As I remember it being told, someone brought these concerns and the math involved to Einstein, who told them to check it again and then a third time, and if the math checked out all three times, he'd do whatever he had to to bury the project, saying something to the effect of living under Nazi rule would be better than literally everyone on Earth dying.

However, for the life of me I can't relocate wherever it was I heard this from, and despite multiple searches I've never been able to find any sources for this, so I'm dreadfully curious if this is true or not.

I've seen some off hand comments that suggest the idea of the "Silk road" has fallen out of favour, or is more complex then the idea suggests. Whats going on with that?