The facial recognition software that could identify thousands of faces in Civil War photographs

Facial recognition is being used to identify American Civil War soldiers who may have otherwise been lost in the sands of time. Computer scientist and history buff Kurt Luther created a free-to-use website, called Civil War Photo Sleuth, that uses facial recognition technology to cross-reference vintage photographs with a database and hopefully assign a name to unknown subjects. Luther was inspired to launch the website after he stumbled upon a wartime portrait of his great-great-uncle, who was a Union corporal in the Civil War. Then, the site's facial recognition technology goes to work, mapping as many as 27 'facial landmarks.' It uses those facial landmarks to compare the photo to the more than 10,000 identified photos in the site's archive.