Magical photographs....

[fudge stripe cookays]

Anyone have any of those family photographs where they can't identify the folks from yesteryear?

I adore old photos so much. I inherited tons of them from my aunt, only a few of which were labeled. But finding all these new cousins is helping me to identify various folks in them.

I was given one back in November from a cousin-- a huge Smith group shot, and I was only able to identify only 4 of the 20 something people.

Today, I received a package from one of my brick wall folks whom I finally found. From the pictures she sent me, I now know half the unknown people in this group shot are the cousins I have been searching for so conscientiously, and this will give me clues for future pix.

I am so tickled to have these. Anyone else have good magical stories of photos suddenly becoming real to them when they were able to figure out who the subjects were?

[Cooley Hurd]

1. I, too, think the photographs are the best (most fun) of the research...

My family, all branches and all generations, have one common denominator - they were ALL adverse to labeling photographs!!!

However, with the help of my oldest sister (she's the oldest, I'm the youngest by a span of 15 years), I've been able to identify most of the people in the photos, enough so that I can identify who almost everyone else is. I also use the time-tested method of ear-identification (kids have similar ears to their parents)... ;)

[fudge stripe cookays]

2. Ha ha!

The Smith ears are easily identifiable for us. Our Smith men have HONKERS! So it's pretty easy to tell some of these guys are definitely related!

fsc

[greatauntoftriplets]

3. Found one of those while cleaning out the house to sell.

I think it might be a great-grandfather as a young man, the only other photo I have of him was at his retirement.

Another great photo is of my grandfather (who died when my father was just 8) taken outside his funeral parlor and with one of his brothers (not sure which one, they all died before I was born). We knew immediately who it was, because he is the spitting image of my father.