1. The first search "Sitting Bull autograph card" brought up one hit, located at Cornell University Library. The entry contains two pieces, one of which is the autograph card and the other the envelope. Sitting Bull (1834? - 1890) was described as a shaman and leader of the Hunpapa Sioux. He was a warrior, wounded several times in battle. He opposed the infiltration of the white man and led warriors from the Cheyenne and Sioux tribes against the U.S. 7th Cavalry at the Battle of Little Bighorn. He led his people into Canada, but they ultimately surrendered to U.S. forces. He later toured with Buffalo Bill Cody's Wild West Show and was killed in another confrontation with the U.S. government. The Ghost Dance had by then been outlawed, but Sitting Bull continued the rituals and traditions and was killed while resisting arrest.
2. In recent years I've made a number of wonderful discoveries about my own family history, so thought I would see what I could find about one of my more well known ancestors, Louis Robert, an early pioneer and prominent citizen of St. Paul, Minnesota. Not surprisingly, the hits that came up for my search of <Louis Robert St. Paul> brought up 3,547 hits, as it was searching on all the words independently and not as phrases. A more refined search of "Louis Robert" "St. Paul" brought up 11 entries, all of which were part of the Minnesota Historical Society. Lots of fascinating information is available including business records for his trading post in early St. Paul, including trade with Native Americans, information about his steamboat travels on the Mississippi River, memoirs of his daughter and other early pioneers....and much more! Looks like I need to pay another visit to the Minnesota Historical Society!
CAMIO
1. A search on Paul Revere in this image database brought up 35 hits, much of which included silver decorative and utilitarian household objects by Revere. Curiously, there doesn't seem to be a standardized use of the name, as he was listed sometimes as Paul Revere, others as Paul Revere, Jr. and at least once as Paul Revere II. His dates were also slightly out of sync listing to listing. In addition to the silver ware, there were a couple of engravings, one of which was hand colored. There were several other items found by other artists, including portraits of his wife. I wish there had been more text with each image to make it a more complete resource.
2.The search on Sioux revealed 63 hits, including a combination of pieces by and about the Sioux. There was a nice variety of objects, drawings, ledger books, paintings, photographs, jewelry, sculpture and prints both contemporary and back to the 19th century. A very nice range of exploration provided.
3. My search for one of favorite artists, Kiki Smith, resulted in only hit, which was a sculpture dated from 1990 held by the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Another search on Karl Bodmer, an artist who accompanied the explorations of naturalist and ethnologist Maximilian, Prince Wied-Neuwied during his 19th century travels up the Ohio and Missouri Rivers, resulted in two hits. One of these was a watercolor landscape near New Harmony, Indiana where they had stopped for the winter. The other was sketchbook page of studies of turkeys.
4. During further explorations, I realized that you could browse by type of art (architecture, digital arts, paintings, prints, installations, etc.) or by institution. If one chose prints, for instance, further refinement of the search would enable you to look at specific types of prints, say woodcuts, from the 19th century. Or, perhaps you were planning a trip to Boston...it might be interesting to get a feel for some of the works in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, so you could identify pieces you might want to see in person. There is also an advanced search option that allows you to search terms and then limit by the institution. While there is no subsitute for seeing works of art in person, this online resource is a viable option for research and exploration of works from museums collections across the globe.
5. Working with favorites is a very nice feature of CAMIO. I did a search on "encaustic", a type of painting process that utilizes hot wax. This process is undergoing a resurgence by artists today, but was first used as a process for creating funerary portaits by the Egyptians. The portrait of an individual was painted and place over the face of the mummy, held in place by the outer layers of wrapping holding it in place (see example below). These are beautiful pieces and there were numerous examples that came up in my search, along with works by contemporary artists that use encaustic. I added a number of the Egyptian portraits to my favorites list.
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I liked the fact that you could choose two items from the favorites and see them side by side for comparison. If I were doing a presentation, such as a history of encaustic, working with the favorites would provide a lot of great tools to assist with such a project. I also played around with creating the webpage, but wasn't sure how to apply this feature and how it would best be used. 
Hi, Pizzuto, thanks for your great report! More family history field trips, coming up--and not too far away. CAMIO web pages could be used by teachers or students to pre-select images and have them available online, especially via an intranet link. Paul Revere was also known as Paul Revere II. Paul Revere, Jr. was Paul Revere's son, also a silversmith. You'd want to use limiters to select those done by Paul Revere. As you noted, contemporary works are few here, and sometimes the images included are not the most familiar of those by well-known artists, but it can be a valuable resource bringing world-class museums to our fingertips!
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