Many times we find ourselves going through old photo albums or shoeboxes that contain wonderful old photographs of people that we have never met, but we know that they are probably our ancestors.  Some of them may be as closely related to us as possibly being our grandparents.  This is especially true after the death of a parent or guardian.

All too often the children have grown up and moved away.  What memories they may or may not have had of some of those people have probably faded far enough to now be almost nonexistent.  They turn the pictures over only to find that nothing has been written on the back.  There are no names, dates or a location written there to help jog an old memory.  Not to mention the fact that memories can become jumbled with age and may not be accurate.

There are many situations in life that prevent us from being able to actually know these individuals.  People get married then divorced and move away, there is no contact between these family members, then someone passes away and their possessions get distributed among those listed as survivors.  These people, the children of the divorced couple suddenly find themselves in possession of photographs of people who they have no idea who they are or how they are related to them.

Old photographs tend to become special even though we have no idea who the person or persons are in the photograph.  Yet we hang onto them, hoping that someday we’ll find out who they are.  Somehow, sadly there are times when that day never comes and now your children or even their children are in possession of this photograph and the chances of finding out just who this person or these people are grows even slimmer.

In many ways that is where I find myself when it comes to a lot of old photographs that my mother had.  With us however I made the misjudgment that there would always be time.  As I stated in the “Overview” page of this site, this whole project was inspired by her and the work we had done together in preparation for this documentary.

As she and I were going through the photographs, talking about them, I should have made the notes then.  But hindsight is 20-20 they say and it’s true.  My Mother passed away before the majority of what we were working on could even get close to publication.  I am attempting to continue this project to the best of ability, in memory of her.

Provided below is a link to another set of pages where I have posted photographs from my personal library.  If there is anyone looking at these pictures and can help me positively identify the person or persons in them, please use the “Comment Form” at the bottom of each page to submit the information.  Thank you in advance.