Genealogy research has long been a
passion of mine. Ever since my mother
left me a pile of old family photos and I built my own family tree, I have been
fascinated by the endeavor to identify family members and their pictures when
available. While I have done extensive
research on my own line, and have quite a number of photos from different
lines, there are still a few relatives whose photos I am missing, and of course
once you get back in the early 1800’s, you have people who were never
photographed at all. Still, I am always
looking for more.
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| Elizabeth "Bessie" Tucker |
So, a few months ago, I was
contacted by Kate Brian Kelly, a woman who has a most fascinating and
altruistic hobby of reuniting old photos with family members. She basically buys old photos in antique
stores and the like, then does research to identify descendants. What she does is truly amazing and inspiring,
and she provides the photos free of charge, even though she spends her own
money to acquire these lost family treasures.
She reached out to me on Ancestry.com because she had found a photograph
of my cousin, Elizabeth “Bessie” Tucker.
She married a Canadian, Lorne Alexander Rapley, and I don’t know if she
had any children. While the original
print went to another cousin, I was grateful to see a digital copy.
Shortly thereafter, Kate contacted
me again, having found a photo of Elizabeth’s father, William Newton Tucker,
who was my great-great grandmother, Mertie Gamble Count’s, first cousin on both
sides of her family. Her father was the
brother of William’s mother, and her mother was the sister of William’s
father. Therefore, they had nearly the
same genetic similarities as full siblings.
It was amazing to get a picture of William in his youth.
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| William Newton Tucker |
Kate runs a facebook group, The
Photo Angel, which highlights success stories of reuniting photos with family. Among her finds, she also discovered baby
photos of my great-grandfather's, George Sylvester Count’s, sister Florella and
Brother Hugh. I suspect these pictures
may have once belonged to my Aunt Martha Counts who died in 2012, as they
turned up in Connecticut where she lived, but I honestly don’t know. Anyway, it was great to see these.
Following these experiences, I have
decided it is time that I did my part to bring lost family photos to life. I have already purchased a few batches of old
photos with identifying writing on them, and using online resources like
Ancestry and Familysearch, I will see who I can find. I know I am always grateful when someone
brings a new family picture to light, and I am expecting that others will be
equally pleased to reclaim a little bit of their own personal heritage that
might otherwise be lost forever.
Therefore, I’ve started a new blog, to detail my research. Following
this post, the photos and individuals highlighted here will not be my own
family. Anyone is free to copy and share
the pictures I find and share on this blog.
I think posting them here will be the easiest way to disseminate them to
as many relatives as possible.
I am not seeking renumeration for
my work, though that means I may not be able to afford to do as much as I would
like. It can get expensive buying photos
that are 100+ years old. Different
people have different reasons for wanting them, and antique stores can drive
prices up based on demand. I’ll buy what
I can, and research when I have the time.
Either way, it is one of my many passions, and I feel it is good work
well worth doing.
