An addiction...

When I retired last year one of my 'plans' was to do something about the large collection of photos. I needed to sort them and I needed to organise them in various ways, especially using digital storage technology. I wanted to find old photos and share them with my children, my brother and his children as well as the few other relatives (cousins that I know of). For about 3 weeks now I've been working on and off on this project. I made an album on Facebook that most of those family members can access and they can also copy and save from this album. It's a WIP, (Work in Progress); as I find photos, I add them to this folder with captions. And then I started wondering about the generation back from my mother...didn't have many photos of these people.

One thing led to another...I started putting some family tree information that a friend did for me about 3 years ago, on to a family tree in Ancestry.com.au . She had used the 'Digger CD sets'. My mother had spoken very little about her family so I didn't know who my great grandparents names were until my friend gave them to me. I didn't know Pa's siblings but did know of 2 of Nanna's sisters. I wanted to know more...I tried the free use of Ancestry...hmmm not very good. Then I paid for 10 views of documents...$10.95. Still not great...you couldn't access people who shared the same forebears. I agonised...I asked for advice from my friends on Facebook...should I pay for a 'proper' subscription to Ancestry.com.au???? There was a 25% discount if a sub was bought before midnight January 16...I 'bit the bullet' and paid up!!

Within 24 hours I had found a cousin I didn't know I had. She was so happy to share family information from her side of the family. She remembered her father talking about my mother but didn't know that I even existed. Then T started going through family photos and steadily emailed them to me over 2 days...absolutely amazing these photos were! In this post I'll feature my nanna and  a selection of the photos I have of her:-

My mother had this photo of my nan when she was a young lady; this is the original photo. As a gift to my mother I had this restored years after I started working. The restoration cost nearly $200 !

My aunt gave me this photo of nanna in 1973 when I visited her.

My nanna was in her 50s I think in this one

I didn't meet my nanna until 1973. this is a photo I took of her then. She died the next year.

So that was a cross section of photos that my family had of my grandmother. Not many really...Then I got some more from cousin T.

My nanna as a girl with her 4 sisters. (second on the right)

We wondered whether this was a wedding photo?

Nanna standing in the middle, Pa seated in front of her. We think that's her father on the left and the women are sisters.

So while everyone has  been going about their daily lives, I have been feverishly looking up census and electoral rolls, birth, deaths and marriage indexes and finding big families who are my ancestors...and this is just the Australian/UK side of the family. T has sent me lots more photos but these are just of my grandma. But I'm going to add one more photo to this post...my long-lost cousin T and her siblings...just like nanna's family, 5 girls!

Cousin T is second from the left :-)