Scientists develop face recognition software to help identify US Civil War soldiers

Washington: Scientists have developed a software that uses crowdsourcing to help algorithms identify faces in photos, that could uncover the mysteries of the nearly 4 million photographs of Civil War-era images that may exist in the historical record. Kurt Luther, an assistant professor at Virginia Tech in the US, was inspired to develop the software for Civil War Photo Sleuth while visiting the Heinz History Center’s exhibit called “Pennsylvania’s Civil War” in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
There he stumbled upon a Civil War-era portrait of Oliver Croxton, his great-great-great uncle who served in Company E of the 134th Pennsylvania, clad in a corporal’s uniform.
“Historical photos can tell us a lot about not only our own familial history but also inform the historical record of the time more broadly than just reading about the event in a history book,” said Luther.