Family History

[Bob Davis]

Trawling through various threads (get a life Bob), I see family photos with houses, streets, parks etc in the shot, I read that Lady P keeps in touch with photos etc. I collect old postcards and ephemera and so many pictures are yo be found with no indication of the who, the what and the where. Just write on the back, the who.....Terry Smith, Elsie Jones and Mr Walker the lodger, the what, the bomb that just missed our mansion, the where at 4 back of 396 Court Lane on December 25th 1942. It may be the worlds worst photograph...get Old Mowhawk to colour it...but you have just added £5 to its value. I have a number of photos that I can identify the location, but not the occassion, but my real find was a wedding photo with a date on it and reference to the archived newspaper gave me the who, the where and the what...a real piece of social history and a copy to the couple's grand children who still live in the village. I appreciate that you have no intention of letting your photos go, but they do and they then appear in boxes ar postcard and antique fairs. My second plea is please ensure any family history that you have is recorded. How i wish that I had asked my parents and grandparents those questions that I now cannot find the answers to.......those grandchildren may not want to know it now, but suddenly at 50/60, nostalgia kicks in, they stop laughing at the Kevin Keegan perm, the Austin Allegro and the flares and ask who were they where was it and what where they doing.
Bob

 

[jmadone]

Trawling through various threads (get a life Bob), I see family photos with houses, streets, parks etc in the shot, I read that Lady P keeps in touch with photos etc. I collect old postcards and ephemera and so many pictures are yo be found with no indication of the who, the what and the where. Just write on the back, the who.....Terry Smith, Elsie Jones and Mr Walker the lodger, the what, the bomb that just missed our mansion, the where at 4 back of 396 Court Lane on December 25th 1942. It may be the worlds worst photograph...get Old Mowhawk to colour it...but you have just added £5 to its value. I have a number of photos that I can identify the location, but not the occassion, but my real find was a wedding photo with a date on it and reference to the archived newspaper gave me the who, the where and the what...a real piece of social history and a copy to the couple's grand children who still live in the village. I appreciate that you have no intention of letting your photos go, but they do and they then appear in boxes ar postcard and antique fairs. My second plea is please ensure any family history that you have is recorded. How i wish that I had asked my parents and grandparents those questions that I now cannot find the answers to.......those grandchildren may not want to know it now, but suddenly at 50/60, nostalgia kicks in, they stop laughing at the Kevin Keegan perm, the Austin Allegro and the flares and ask who were they where was it and what where they doing.
Bob

How I agree with you Bob. Thanks to the 1939 register I have just discovered a step sister and step brother of my mom's who I didn't know existed. Another Aunt turns out to be a full sister of theirs and not my mom's full sister and although I visited and stayed with this aunt on lot's of occassions there was never any reference to these either from her, my mom or my grandmother. They were never discussed in the family and one of them was still living in Birmingham in the 1980s. I have found out what I can, i.e birth, marriage and death and where they lived etc. but not why they were never visited, mentioned or attended numerous family occassions. Sadly all those people who could have told me are no longer with us and I guess I'll never know

 

[Lady Penelope]

Two things struck me about these posts folks. The first was when I went to my lovely aunt's funeral many years ago and her eldest son cried all the way through the service. When I asked someone why he had been crying I was told that he hadn't spoken to his mother for a very long time and now it was too late. nobody could remember why they weren't speaking. Barmy!

The second was when we were starting to look at my husband's family history. We had a list of the guests and were given a group photo of his parents on their wedding day. We managed to ask a cousin, who had been bridesmaid, who some of the people were and are still fitting pieces to the jigsaw with the help of Ancestry and another cousin. It was only after some time that we found that my husband had spent most of his childhood, until the late '70s, living just around the corner from his uncle and aunt (brother and sister of his father) and didn't know.

 

[rosie]

I think it's sad that photos don't get printed out now. Visitors will say "Look at....." on their phone but it's not the same as having a proper one to look at over and over.
My cousin gave me copies of old family photos and she wrote carefully on the backs who they were. My husband hasn't any photos of his grandparents,( except a fuzzy copy of his grandmother) it's such a shame.
rosie.

 

[Lady Penelope]

I inherited our Victorian family album and although I knew who some of the people in the photos were - some still remain a mystery but I'm still filling in blanks. I made them into a family history CD and gave them to those members of the family who were interested. I've named all the ones I know. Must look into all the ones from our marriage and my childhood - there must be about 6 boxes. I fully intend to sort out the best ones and put them into books - but this is a job I save for winter (and have done for several years!)