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Write it down

Maybe not so much now but family photos, especially wedding photos, can disappear after an acrimonious divorce/split.

When my parents split a lot of photos must have been thrown out. I had a couple in which my mother was scribbled out but that's all.

I was lucky though that when my last great aunt died, some photos that must have been given to my great grandmother came in to my possession . They could easily have been thrown away.

I also wonder it there were photos from my nan's wedding that were thrown out when my grandad left her.
 
farmerdave said:
From the Goonshow. "What time is it Eccles"? "Just a minute, I've got it written down on a piece of paper." Brilliant.
Can't get YouTube video to load. Sorry
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Like Emily Thornberry rummaging in her handbag on Question Time for some figure which she found. I loved it
 
MWS said:
Maybe not so much now but family photos, especially wedding photos, can disappear after an acrimonious divorce/split.

When my parents split a lot of photos must have been thrown out. I had a couple in which my mother was scribbled out but that's all.

I was lucky though that when my last great aunt died, some photos that must have been given to my great grandmother came in to my possession . They could easily have been thrown away.

I also wonder it there were photos from my nan's wedding that were thrown out when my grandad left her.
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I have my Nan and Grandad's wedding photo. The rest she said her 2nd husband burnt and he said she did. I have them in my memory!
 
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When I worked for 25 years I received a carriage clock. My young boss wrote me a very bad corny poem as he knew I liked poetry whch I put in the back of the clock. Eventually I got the big heave ho but occa isionally I get it out and read it. I wrote a poem for a colleague to give to her best friend. They recently created a private workmates, Website, and she posted it on that and thanked me again. That was nice.
 
Usually the crooks with something to hide
Added later: This was posted concerning Pedrocuts comments on "the right to be forgotten"
 
I have just heard that some ordinary people plan to visit every cemetary in the UK maybe wider? and record every grave and classify them. This won't help the unmarked ones they will still be word of mouth.
 
I have a collection of letters written by my Mum & Dad from when they were walking out together before the war until Dad was discharged from the army. The letters could be scanned but there is also a physical/emotional context to them which would not be conveyed on line.
 
Tinpot said:
I have a collection of letters written by my Mum & Dad from when they were walking out together before the war until Dad was discharged from the army. The letters could be scanned but there is also a physical/emotional context to them which would not be conveyed on line.
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Absolutely.
 
Nico said:
I have just heard that some ordinary people plan to visit every cemetary in the UK maybe wider? and record every grave and classify them. This won't help the unmarked ones they will still be word of mouth.
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People already contribute to BillionGraves.com and FindAGrave.com etc. both free resources. Even stone tablets wear away, some faster than others.
 
Like so many of the BHF Forums, a simple query or suggestion becomes a major topic and always interesting and this one is no different, but it does reiterate something that I have said for years, on the back of that photo, postcard or piece of ephemera put in names, dates and locations where you can. As a postcard collector I have become aware that in the years between the wars a lot of photographers printed out photographs on card with postcard backs, strangely enough, a great many actually got postally used. If it was a topographical picture with auntie and uncle in the foreground, apart from the value as part of a family tree to the relatives, it also has value to the topographical collector because it shows something of the location that they are interested in. I have such a card, showing a wedding party in the street outside a house. No indication of the location, but I luckily recognised it and bought it for my collection, quite a find. I do not know who the people are, but I know exactly where they are. Make WRITE IT DOWN your mantra, catalogue those old pictures, even those colour ones that have faded.

Bob
 
Having just found a lot of old photographs that had not seen the light of day for many a decade, could I suggest that we ask our relatives if they know who they are of, whilst they are still with us to answer the question and then write that information on the back of those old photographs?

I was able to remember who a lot of them were of, having previously asked my grandmother (I'm even on a fair few), but there were some dating back to the start of the last century that had me stumped. If only I had asked and then written the answers on the back of them...
 
I found an oldish camera that was possibly my mom's with half a used film in it. I wasn't sure if I should but I finished of the roll and went to get it developed.

I was told however that no one developed that type of film anymore, so it's now on a shelf.
 
Bob Davis said:
As a postcard collector I have become aware that in the years between the wars a lot of photographers printed out photographs on card with postcard backs, strangely enough, a great many actually got postally used.

Bob
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I recently obtained some photos that were mostly labelled on the back, not always correctly. (In particular one of a lady was said to be of an aunt - non-blood - but I would put money on it being the mother of the writer as his son was a dead-ringer for her). There is one on a post card, a note on the back implies it was the writer's grandmother, but who was she? Couldn't find her on the census. Had she re-married? The most likely person, but with low confidence, was called 'Tait'. Searched the web for that. Pulled out one of those 'gold dust' transcriptions of a memorial that lists half the family. Right at the bottom was a widow that had re-married - original surname for my candidate 'Tait' - deathplace given as the village shop. Back to the postcard - a village shop, nameboard 'Tait' over the door. Back to the census, a whole lot of sibblings and half sibblings of the writer's mother that I expect he never knew about.

Something that I probably should do is make low-res. scans of the front/rear of mounted photographs. I do tend to crop them if I use them on the web but information about the mount can sometimes provide dates (beware of re-photographed or re-mounted photos though).
 
pjmburns said:
Perhaps try a local photographic club - someone there may still use film.
Not sure where you tried but there is a suggestion Max Spielman do develop film.

Camera Film Developing | Film Processing | Max Spielmann

Let's get those happy memories into your hands. Get all kinds of camera film developed by our in-store specialists, including 35mm, APS and so much more!
www.maxphoto.co.uk www.maxphoto.co.uk
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Will check it out. Thanks.
 
The discussions in this thread remind of a day about 18 months ago when the Shoothill collection of about 1000 digital images of old Birmingham disappeared in a puff of azure blue. I suppose we assumed they would be there forever ...

Shoothill (on behalf of Birmingham Library) used Microsoft's Deep Zoom technology to make the images easily searched and viewable. I presume the original prints are presently stored in the library archives but it has never been clear whether the library has digital images.

Over time about 250 of the images had been copied and posted on the BHF.

The link below goes to a post which has links to all the images below. Click the links or use the pdf.

Shoothill Images on the BHF

The following images originated from the Warwickshire Photographic Survey, founded in 1890 by two local photographers, William Jerome Harrison and John Benjamin Stone. The Survey was formed to create a photographic record of the urban and rural landscape of Warwickshire which was undergoing...
birminghamhistory.co.uk birminghamhistory.co.uk
All browsers work ...
 
MWS said:
I found an oldish camera that was possibly my mom's with half a used film in it. I wasn't sure if I should but I finished of the roll and went to get it developed.

I was told however that no one developed that type of film anymore, so it's now on a shelf.
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MWS, there are people that will develop that for you, specially photographers. I have an Agfa camera that I bought from a camera shop on Wellington rd just off from Birchfield road in 1960. I used it a little when I came to the US in 1962. Having just moved we found it with a partial roll in it. My first reaction was the same as you then I started looking because I was curious, I quickly found 3 or 4 people that can do that. You might be suprised, good luck!
 
Pedrocut said:
Save the negatives and slides. Great pictures can be created from them, much better than a scan of the picture.
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I would scan everything you can in the highest resolution your scanner will go. Even if you save a hard copy of everything over time we revise normal aging deterioration. Scanners and remote hard drives are inexpensive.

My wife was the saver of photos, she used to buy those big books to keep the photos in (we still have many) and they are not in expensive. Now I scan as many as possible or save from the SD card Os save both.
As someone said in an earlier post relating to person letters, totally agree but run it through the scanner it won’t be quite the same but if it’s that significant you will have an extra copy!

I started doing this VERY late and regardless there are so many photos and letters we missed. On my wife’s side there are many more photo memories. I would say take multiple paths, save them, scan them and print them but do it now :)
 
Spargone said:
People already contribute to BillionGraves.com and FindAGrave.com etc. both free resources. Even stone tablets wear away, some faster than others.
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A chap in the USA does just that, he visits graves and posts them on a site. I put a birth relative's name in and his site came up. We got chatting, initially arguing, as we have two names for the same relative. The chap, a maker of baseball bats is a very very distant cousin on his aunt's side.

I have posted this before but...I have a story book that was my Nan's which was dedicated to her on her 7th birthday, by her grandma in beautiful copperplate writing, and my late 3rd cousin who was a little eccentric used to write to me on parchment with a caligraphy pen and seal the letter with a wax seal.

My partner has her mother's and grandfather's accounts written in copperplate and old documents. The prices of the goods is very interesting. Her mother kept everything from car park tickets to wine labels. France is still not bg on greeting cards but her mother had kept every one she ever had, plus Baptisms she had attended and communions, and family dinners with hand written menus (for fun) all with a little card, and greetings from her butcher and baker. Even her gift tags she kept.
 
My old boss's slogan, he had many sadly, was Write It Down, when someone forgot etc. Horrible chap, M Demotivator, who kept a roll of Haizel was it, toilet paper, handy, and shout do you want me to........this did not go down well with our female colleagues and in the end he was made to remove it. But that slogan was good.
 
I have half/part of a photo of my grandad from WWI when he was in the Labour Corps. It's a group photo of him and 6 others.

Unfortunately there are no names on it but at some stage someone has put a cross above his head which makes me smile because they are disparate group and my grandad is easily picked out.

I also wonder if descendants of the other men have the same photo and also look at it, wondering who the others were.
 
MWS said:
I have half/part of a photo of my grandad from WWI when he was in the Labour Corps. It's a group photo of him and 6 others.

Unfortunately there are no names on it but at some stage someone has put a cross above his head which makes me smile because they are disparate group and my grandad is easily picked out.

I also wonder if descendants of the other men have the same photo and also look at it, wondering who the others were.
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I have a few old photos of my mum's boyfriend who was killed in Malaysia with a group of other tanned soldiers. I wondered often who they were. And who his family were. He wrote on the back. Another photo of a pen friend or boyfriend from Ireland. I wondered if he made it. I hoped so. She said the men in 'the forces' asked for girls to write to if they didn't have a girlfriend. The Irish lad was her friend's brother who worked with her in a drawing office in Birmingham I also noted the photo said Eire. He looked really young.
I have my birth father's handwriting on a newspaper cutting. Of course everyone used fountain pens then.
 
MWS said:
I have half/part of a photo of my grandad from WWI when he was in the Labour Corps. It's a group photo of him and 6 others.

Unfortunately there are no names on it but at some stage someone has put a cross above his head which makes me smile because they are disparate group and my grandad is easily picked out.

I also wonder if descendants of the other men have the same photo and also look at it, wondering who the others were.
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I too have several photographs of my father taken during WW2 with friends and fellow servicemen and women. Some of them have a dedication such as "To Jim from Sadie" but none with any surnames or anything. Some I have posted on other websites and forums and on this forum in the hope that someone may recognise a friend or family member or as you say has a copy of the same photo and are likewise wondering who the others may be.
 
i am quite lucky with family photos as dad was a stickler for writing on the back of most of them.. who was who where and when so much so that i have a lovely group photo of himself and 24 other army mates taken during his national service...he even got every one of them to sign their names themselves on the back.. :)

lyn
 
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Astoness said:
i am quite lucky with family photos as dad was a stickler for writing on the back of most of them.. who was who where and when so much so that i have a lovely group photo of himself and 24 other army mates taken during his national service...he even got everyone of them to sign their names themselves on the back.. :)

lyn
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My mother did write down something about her life in Arthur St. There is more to type up yet but this is the opening paragraph.
 

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I was lucky enough to have been given my birth grandfather's ration book. I had never seen one before just heard about them. And my birth mother's science book from schooldays. How advanced the teaching was then, better than mine. She had drawn a superb picture of a cow showing it's internal organs ad a calf in the womb and each of these sections were attached on paper in relief and you can lift the flaps. Her hand writing was immaculate and flowing, it's not now we have a job to read it.
I have a copy of a photo of my birth grandmother aged 21 hand written on the back her name is different, that started an interesting argument too.
My partner found I.D. cards of her grandparents and discovered her grandmother used her middle name. She didn't know her first name was something else.
I have a copy of the adoption of my birth grandmother which is very interesting. I asked advice from the Forum on it. I will be asking you again too. We wonder if it was in fact not legal as the purported birth father, 'a dodgy geezer' did not write his correct Christian name or that of my birth grandmother the child they were giving away for adoption. I am thinking he didn't know her name, he wasn't married to my birth great grandmother either and put that they were.
 
I am also lucky to have some boxed games that belonged to my great great aunt who with her husband ran a childrens' home in Cheltenham. One of the games is called Spillicans. It is a rudimentery sort of Kerplunk with the pieces made in fine bone or wood in the shape of tools. With roman numerals on them in red ink for the scores. Anyway one of the boys, they were all boys some evacuees, had written a satirical footnote on the rules still inside. How old must that paper be?
My cousin says he has a diary of Queen Victoria which he bought in a Herts bookshop, but he was told it is worthless because children had scribbled all over it. I wouldn't mind having it and he won't part with it.
 
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