Family Tree Frog

Don't these women look relaxed in this boat?  It's a long weekend this weekend in the land of Oz.  The Queen's Birthday weekend to be precise.  And I fully intend to relax.   When I searched for photos in our family collection of women in boats, I came across this one. I didn't think much about it to be honest.  I have no idea when it was taken or who that little girl is.  I am now wondering if it was my mother's cousin Joy.  I think it is certainly my mother's mother Kit sitting on the left with the hat.  This is one of my maternal grandfather's photos.  No writing on the back to help me.  So I'm going to guess sometime in the early 1930s before my mother was born in 1935.   The name of the boat certainly did help me.  As I blundered my way around Trove and Google, I have now come to the conclusion that this must be a speed boat.   My grandfather loved horse-racing so it is not too far a str...

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 ...

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: Our sepia friend Postcardy suggested statues and monuments as a theme for this week and also pointed us in the direction of this 1914 photograph of the Jefferson Statue in Columbia (which is taken from the Library of Congress collection on Flickr Commons). Photographers of all ages and all times have always been drawn to statues : there is nothing like a mounted equestrian hero or a stone-clad voluptuous heroine to get the camera shutters clicking. So for Sepia Saturday 220 (post your posts on or around Saturday 22 March 2014) all you have to do is to highlight an old photograph which in any convoluted way fits in with the theme image and tell us a little about it. Post your post, link your link, visit your visitors and help make Sepia Saturday a monument to blogging nostalgia. Statues...I love 'em.  Brisbane's got quite a few when you think about it.  We got all excited about them during World Expo '88 and the ones from Expo a...