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:-
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| 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 ! |
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| My aunt gave me this photo of nanna in 1973 when I visited her. |
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| My nanna was in her 50s I think in this one |
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| 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.
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| My nanna as a girl with her 4 sisters. (second on the right) |
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| We wondered whether this was a wedding photo? |
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| 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!
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| Cousin T is second from the left :-) |
