Family Tree Frog

I've said it before and I'll say it again, all I ever wanted for Christmas was a swing.  Did I get one?  No.  And now I am old I would still like a swing - probably a more sedate one like this.  My grandmother had one of those swing seats and I thought they were grand.  I still want one.  If anyone is listening.  Anyone? Sigh. Here are some photos of people on swings for consideration, from my mother's albums again. Swings come in all shapes and sizes.  Look at this beauty.  Taken in Newcastle me-thinks. Dolly, Kit, Shirley, Barbara I have no idea who Dolly is.  She must have been a friend of Kit - my mother's mother.  I think Dolly has her back to us.  All you can really see of Barbara is a little face between Kit and Shirley.  They are on the left-hand side of the swing facing us.  At a guess, I would say this is taken about 1939.  Perhaps Belle, Kit's twin sister took the photo.  Maybe she...

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...

Alan from Sepia Saturday says: Our Sepia Saturday challenge this weekend is a little different. What we are asking you to do is to forget the foreground and look into the background. Take, for example, this pedestrian snap of my Uncle Harry, Auntie Annie and Unknown Man. The centre of attention is the three figures walking down some seaside promenade, but the interest in such a shot is probably limited to those fascinated by the everyday history of my family (a small and select group of people). But if your move your focus to the background there is a wealth of interest. Note the sailor in uniform, suggesting that this might have been a wartime shot. But there are still cast-iron railings on top of the wall and later in the war all such things were taken down and melted to make gun barrels or some such thing. Look at the hats, look at the sensible shoes : there is enough to keep you busy for a whole Sepia Weekend. This has been a great exercise for me in working out which ...

Alan from Sepia Saturday says: There is something for everybody in Sepia Saturday 257 (post your posts on or around Saturday 6th December 2014).  There is a father and son, there is a dog, there are some wooden steps, and there is even a little cowboy with a lasso. The 1916 picture comes from the Flickr stream of the Provincial Archives of Alberta. If you can match some aspect of the theme image do so. If not, don't worry, just post any old photo and tell us a little about it. Barbara McLoughlin playing with Christmas Tree at Rocco Court Flats National Park Street Hamilton Newcastle circa 1937 Here is my mother playing with a very small Christmas tree.  She was born on 7 December 1935 so I'm guessing this was taken circa 1936 or 1937.  This is what is written on the back in her handwriting.  I wrote Hamilton. Steps seem to have been a popular setting for family photos in the McLoughlin and Wingfield families.   I haven't managed to ...

Every week I participate in a meme called Sepia Saturday and this week Alan suggests:  Our theme this week revolves around letters home and you can interpret it as widely as you want. It might be letters, it might be cards, it might be writing, it might be people far away from home. All you need to do is to feature an old photograph and tell us a little about it. I'm a bit short on time (and photos if I'm honest) so this week's contribution is a postcard. Unfortunately I don't know the area well enough to say where this picture would have been taken from but I welcome comments and observations on same. The postcard is from my maternal grandmother, Kit, who died before I was born and four years after this was written. It is addressed to my maternal grandfather Tom.  Kit and Barbara - not quite sure where this photo was taken but it was around that time period.  Here is the back of the postcard. The card is dated 30 December 1952...

Alan from Sepia Saturday says: The other week I made a confession about my aversion to gardening and all things horticultural and I was challenged to include a possible gardening theme for a future Sepia Saturday. Well, here it is - for Sepia Saturday 224 (post your post on or around Saturday 19th April 2014) you can choose from gardens, gardening, watering cans, and men stood watching women do all the work. The title of this 1943 photograph, which appears on the US National Archives stream on Flickr, is "Frequent watering of the Victory Garden is necessary during the early stages of growth". You are, of course, able to interpret the theme image in any way you want. Anyone who knows me well, GrandPurlBaa for example, knows that gardening is not my forte.  I appreciate a beautiful garden...really appreciate it but will do nothing to create my own.  Lazy sod that I am. And yet I can't blame it on my genes.  Both sides of my family seem to have loved garde...