70 year old home movies on 8mm
 

One of my other hobbies is collecting old home movies on film.
Back in 2009 I found ---> some films dating from 1946 to about 1952, <---they were all from one family who lived somewhere in Southern California, there were very few clues as to exactly where they were made however.
I searched with Google Maps for years trying to locate the Spanish style house with the address of 1508 seen in the films, I could tell it was near the foothills somewhere but pretty much every city from Los Angeles to San Bernardino has similar looking foothills.

Last week I decided to get out the actual film again and watch it again looking for a clue to the location, the only thing I found was a sign on a building for "Hennigers School of Music". A Google search for that name turned up nothing but I did notice the can the film was stored in was from a Camera Store in Glendale California, Finally a clue! they must have been from Glendale.

I started searching near the camera store location but couldn't find any residential streets that went up to the 1500 block. I finally decided to broaden the search and started searching the area near the mountains, I picked a street at random and entered the Street View in the 1400 block, I started going up the street, figuring I'd run out of block before I hit the 1500 block, but then I passed a house that had the address on the curb blurred out, but the numbers on the front of the house were clearly visible, 1508, and the style of the house was right as well, but surely it couldn't be that easy?
I opened up the video I made of the film and started comparing the house to the one on Google and it was a match, but was it just a house with the same blueprint?
Luckily the camera operator had panned around the street showing the neighboring houses and they matched exactly, in fact they have changed very little in 70 years! (other than it's valued at about a million bucks now) even a huge Palm Tree in front of the house is still there, and even taller.

Now that I had an address I started trying to find out who lived there at that time, I found out the name of the High School for that area and started searching the yearbooks for a boy seen in the films, he goes from about 11 to a Teenager and is featured in the films a lot so it was pretty easy to find his senior picture on Classmates.com, that also gave me a name.

I joined ancestry.com and found out a whole lot more about them, mother, father, location of the school, other relatives so now I know quite a lot about these films that have been haunting me for the last six years.

Now possibly the best part, a search shows someone of exactly the right age (81) with the same name still living in the L.A. area, I even found a possible picture of him at age 78 and I think it's a match, so I guess I need to get up the nerve to give him a call and see if it's him.


The house in the film circa 2014.

wow - I love this kind of history search - keep us up to date

Yes I love it also :)

I hope you can keep your films in good shape Eric!! (I hope you dont ever feel you have to digitise them (You will lose quality))

This is just going overboard and actually counterproductive. First, regular or super 8 quality is represented very well in a good quality DVD transfer. But most important, The best way to preserve color film is to project it as little as possible, store it in a cool dry place, and use a digital copy for viewing. The ultimate best storage for color film is freezing it. This way, the original will be kept as good as possible so that if a better digital transfer process becomes available in the future, the original is still as clean and unfaded as possible.

see
http://www.centerforhomemovies.org/filmforever/

While they recommend projecting your film when you want the original experience, I feel they do not warn strongly enough about making sure the projector will not cause damage, deposit oil or dirt, etc. I think most amateur projectors are iffy.

The only way to preserve these old films for the future is to Digitize them.

As good as they still look they are starting to smell like Vinegar after 70 years, digitizing will keep them looking like new forever provided they are backed up and kept safe.
It's also the only way to share them.

What's up with the funky artifact in the picture of the house you uploaded?

Thank you , A Great Site
 

Thank you , A Great Site

It's a screen grab from Google Maps.

You should work for CSI. Well done.

Let us know what happens. Who knows, the guy might be happy to be reunited with the long lost films of his family.

I wonder what living in America back then was like.

Well I've hit a dead end trying to contact the guy in the film, I haven't been able to find a good phone number or a relative yet.

Glendale property records go thru LA county recorder:
http://lavote.net/home/records/real-...ecords-request

Not free, but apparently less than $20. Online services available thru third-party inquiries, like LexisNexis or others.

You could see if your guy still owns the property. At 81, he may have transitioned to some other living arrangement, but there will still be a financial custodian keeping up with things. Time's tickin', though.

If he's no longer the owner, the most current info for him will probably be in the associated real-estate closing documents, unless that was accomplished by an estate executor. :(

Doing your same research to get to the next door neighbor may be worthwhile. Or, contacting someone local who can knock on a few doors.

You're getting close, though.

You could also try contacting an area TV station and see if they're up for a feel-good story. You'd probably have to submit to some kind of interview, and you wouldn't have control of the resulting narrative. Depends on your appetite for publicity.

Chip

You can also search online for court records (municipal, common please, etc). There you'll find traffic tickets, small claims, etc. But you'll also find current addresses. Then you could write a letter.

I did this when trying to contact a former owner of my house. I wrote the letter, but never did get a response. I figure she may be too old to be able to respond now. Oh well, it was worth a shot.