Turning the pages of an old family album stirs memories, transports us back to a different time, captures our imaginations and leaves us wishing we knew more … click on any photo to enter my family album …
My Great Grandmother – she was listed in Harvard University’s “A Woman of the Century” published in 1893 – Alice Isabel Blanche Pentecost
I call this Girl in the Straw Hat – this is my mother – Margaret Marion Laird
This handsome man was sacrificed to World War II – he is my uncle, a pilot with the RAF – Kenneth Malcolm Laird
This is One of the Last of the Grand Old Ladies – my grandmother – a lady of strength and grace and class – Hilda Alexandra Mary Henderson
A philanthropist and entrepreneur, this is my great great grandfather – James Beatty Grafton
My parents – Sydney James Grafton and Margaret Marion Laird
My grandfather – Sydney Gordon Grafton
My great grandmother – Jean Gordon Douglass with my grandfather Sydney Gordon Grafton
My great grand aunt – Helen Douglass – this wedding gown is now in a museum in Dundas, Ontario.
This lovely lady was once dubbed the most beautiful girl in Dinan – my grandmother, Marion Blanche Bagley
The Weekly Photo Challenge is: Nostalgic
Beautiful collections love it 🙂
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So beautiful! Such wonderful memories. 🙂
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I learned so much about family members when putting together my book “Who Are These People?”. It was exciting picking up each hint and clue and following the cookie-crumb trails.
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I wish I’d done that when I was younger. There’s no one to hint to now. 🙂 Marsha 🙂
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Actually I found an incredible amount of information online – full stories about some of my ancestors. One told of a 4x great grandfather leading a caravan of settlers from NY state to Upper Canada and their trials and tribulations, and another story was about a 9x great grandfather’s voyage from Bristol England to Massachusetts in 1635.
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That’s awesome. I never had much luck finding my dad’s side of the family. There were too many of them. Several other people researched my Mom’s side of the family, so I have more knowledge about them
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Ancestery.com website seems to be a good place to start
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Mum, we DO come from a long line of beauties, don’t we? All I see is you in that one of Granny and Grandpa with the dog. And I think I know where A got her elegant neck from. The one of Granny in the straw hat makes me smile 🙂
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🙂 Yes, and my girls and granddaughter inherited the beauty gene too.
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Some priceless pictures there – that hammock! Crazy! Such elegance shines through many of these women.
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As women I think we’ve changed over the century more than men have – I think in a broad sense we have lost a lot of our mystery and therefore much our old world elegance.
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I love the rich history behind the photos. Thank you for taking the time to share.
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Thank YOU Busanee 🙂
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such wonderful images Lynne…I adore the last one with the hammock
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Thank you, Jo. I am fortunate to be able to remember all of my 4 grandparents. Marion’s mother (Marion is the girl in the hammock) kept a journal about Marion and it was in there that I found the story about Marion being referred to as the most beautiful girl in Dinan (which is in Brittany, France)
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These are just amazing, Lynne. What courageous and beautiful ancestors you have! 😀
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It was amazing the stories we were able to unearth with a bit digging – I seem to come from fairly sturdy stock – people who wanted to help others as they could. A very nice legacy.
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Thank you so much for sharing your precious photos! Beautiful photos.
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I wish I had family photos like yours, your straw hat mum is especially beautiful!
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Yes, she was and she was playful and fun with an impish sense of humour. And we are lucky to have so many photos – unfortunately I have several old portrait type shots with no indication of who they are, the only assumption that they fit into the family somehow, but – ? And I threw out a whole album of old shots going back to the early 1900s because there was not a single notation, date, name, location – nothing. My grandmother once wrote on the back of one of her photos the useless notation: “taken this summer” 🙂 Perhaps, as I said earlier, people didn’t realize how long these photos would last and the interest they would hold for future generations.
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How lucky you are.I just have a few Pictures and some retold stories,which is not much but I I have.
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Every little bit is a treasure to pass along to the next generation, Hanno.
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Well you are quite lucky maybe you have seen my post last week.I am not that lucky but I have accepted it.
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A fascinating glimpse of family history.
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They always leave me wanting to know a little more …
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As Americans we are not slowed down by the baggage of history, neither are we then able to really understand and appreciate the impact on the paths we choose by those who came before us.
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There is always the ‘if’ question isn’t there – what if ….
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How lucky you are to have such an album… the family history is so nice to have… wonderful photos, do you think they were taken professionally.???
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Three or four of these are professional portraits. I think the candids often say a lot more though. I’ve just completed and self-published a book of stories about my ancestors – I was lucky to have a lot of family photos to include. So often there are pictures, and no names, no indication at all of who they are. My own mother-in-law’s comment was … “I know who they are” … I think with the really old photos people didn’t realize just how long they would last – that they would be around generations later with people wondering, who are these people … which happens to be the name of my book 🙂
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