Going Through Old Family Photos

Anonymous032819 · ‎03-29-2019

I was going through some old family photos that have been passed down through the years. Some are 80+ years old. What I find sad is a lot of them don't have names on the photos.

They are people who lived and who loved and were loved, but now, they are strangers to me.

Sometimes I wish that I could go back in time and meet these people, get their life story, get to know them.

I just find family history to be interesting, because their lives, their DNA makes us who we are.

Anybody else feel the same way?

The Sky looks different when you have someone you love up there.

haddon9 · ‎03-09-2010

@Anonymous032819 Yes I also have some old family photos and I just don't know who some of the people are. Even looking at them with my mom a few years ago she couldn't tell me who they were either.

It is a bit sad and I would love to know who they were and how they were in the lives of the people that I know.

luvmybeetle · ‎08-10-2013

I also feel the same way. I joined Ancestry.com and didn't get very far. I am only second generation born American and I know most everyone in my mother's old albumns but that's as far as I can go. I found that the more you pay Ancestry the better you get. I can't afford that. I would love to go way back into by family past. What I did find out is that I thought I was one nationality and I'm not. It was interesting to see that.

FLtricia · ‎02-18-2012

I just finished clearing out my mother's home so it could be sold. She is 95 and can no longer live alone. She is legally blind, so can no longer identify family members in photos. I so wish that years ago when she could see I had written down who these people were.

The most fascinating find was a 4x6" (approximately) album of portraits that appear to have been taken in the 1860's. One man is in a union uniform, and the ladies and children's gowns appear to be from that time. No names, no cover to identify photographer. I so wish I knew which side of the family this album came from.

I cannot dispose of the pictures as I want my children and their children to at least see what their ancestors looked like and in some cases see where they lived.

Moral of story is that I will be writing what names I know on back of pictures so all will not be lost.

QVCkitty1 · ‎05-23-2015

My uncle, who is no longer with us, was really into the family's past. I'm sorry to say we ignored most of his hard work and research.

" You are entitled to your opinion. But you are not entitled to your own facts."
Daniel Patrick Moynihan

nana59 · ‎05-12-2012

we just went through family pictures...divided them up between our two children...only kept pictures of people we knew...if we didn't know who they were....my children certainly would not....

Carmie · ‎10-25-2010

I agree and I am guilty of doing the same thing. My two sons are a little more than a year apart and they have passed for identical twins.

I have pictures of them individually, and I don't know which one is which.

ECBG · ‎01-08-2011

I have the old family photos and know the names because I was asking as a teenager.

Some families didn't take pictures. I wish they had.

Records then were kept in family bibles.

I would have loved to see my teenaged grandfather on my dad's side, but no pictures. My fav grandmother and he, no wedding photo, or her in her wedding dress if there was one.

I have 1 still shot of my great grand parents in their wedding clothes.

Pictures seem to begin in the 1940's, probably as Kodak cameras became popular.

traveler · ‎03-09-2010

My sons do not want their childhood photos. They want them scanned then destroy the baby photos. I haven't gotten around to it yet.

jackthebear · ‎03-11-2010

@nana59 wrote:
we just went through family pictures...divided them up between our two children...only kept pictures of people we knew...if we didn't know who they were....my children certainly would not....

exactly

we kept some of the ones we knew,