Family Tree Frog

I am having a great deal of difficulty staying on theme today.  Here is my photo which probably just scrapes in on the 30 years old Sepia Saturday rule; although the "rules" on Sepia Saturday have always really just been guidelines with plenty of room for wriggle. Jim and Alex en route to Melbourne circa 1990 I'm pretty sure this was taken on a trip to Melbourne with my parents just before I got married.  That is the weekend Australian I am reading and if I was holding the paper straighter, we might have been able to read the date.  Oops I'd better make it sepia hadn't I?  There you go. If you read my blog last week, I am excited to report that there is an update on the photo of my mother and the dog Pete and that we have been able to locate where the photo was taken so head on over and have a look at the postscript. Here are some other photos where I am unable to place them but they called to me this morning from the album.  All thoughts...

12 Marchmont Road Edinburgh 6th April 1921 My Dear Colin, I don't think any of us wrote last week so I am just writing a short note to let you know that we are all right. We have not heard from you for a few weeks now but expect a mail soon. You will see from the papers that we have another coal strike with the prospect of the railwaymen and transport workers joining. Just when things are beginning to right themselves we have more trouble. However things must be put on a self paying basis. Up till present the Government have had control of the mines and it is only now when they have let go the control that the coalowners are trying to reduce the wages. The railways are under government control too but it is later on when they are to be decontroled (sic).  We are now getting into lovely weather and with the trees & bushes coming into leaf again and the birds busy; it makes this country perfect. We have the clocks put on one hour so that gives us fin...

Donation Earlier this week one of my colleagues was doing the rounds of the library, getting us ready to open one morning when she noticed a box had been left at the front door.  Many people donate books they no longer need or want for us to add to the collection (if they are in pristine condition).  But this box was a whole different kettle of fish...... The box was duly dragged into the workroom and we all sighed over the contents. Someone's precious memories given....to us.  There was no note.  Why do I feel a bit like a baby had been left on the doorstep?   So - call me a hopeless case, but I am now sifting through it, trying to establish provenance and whether any items might be of interest to any particular collecting institution or at the least provide good material for blogging.   But the event has also reminded me that we as family historians do need to make plans for what happens to our stuff after we've gone.  I think the ...

Alan from Sepia Saturday says: Our theme image for Sepia Saturday 197 does not come from one of the on-line collections on Flickr Commons. Let's face it, no world-class image collection would give album space to this blurred, scratched, undefined, and plain boring image. In fact it comes from the collection of that great photographer, Frank Fieldhouse (AKA "Uncle Frank"), and is entitled "The Pennines (From Express), 1941". Dusty, dirty, and plain as it is, it reminds us that we all have such images in our collections - and sometimes they can be as revealing as a picture postcard. So for Sepia Saturday 197 we are inviting you to by-pass the best, avoid the crystal clear, and focus your attention on the less than perfect, because, as we all know, all too often, life is less than perfect. Great !  Fabulous!  A chance to show off all those misbegotten masterpieces! My mother (as a fledgling photographer) seemed to have been wrestling with differen...

The theme for this week's Sepia Saturday post is smoking and anything else associated with the prompt image on the blog e.g. black cats, vending machines and so on. I am kind of excited about this theme because it gives me a chance to highlight an interesting series of photos found in my maternal grandfather's collection i.e. those belonging to Thomas McLouglin (1898 - 1982).      Seated Smoker  I don't know who is who in any of these photos or whether any of them are my grandfather.  It's hard to tell.  I suspect that they are friends, brothers or cousins.  I have a memory of my mother saying that her cousin was a photographer and there does seem to be a lot of posing going on and experimenting with light and contrast so, maybe her cousin's father owned the photography business first and then passed it on to his son.   Spivs Here are some more photos of the likely lads.  They look rather sharp don't yo...