Two very different things prompted me to create this photo story.

One of these is the beginning thoughts of how to create an ancestor profile for the two Civil War era lineage societies to which I belong.  The historian for these groups is trying to create an ancestor directory for the members which includes photos, if we have them.  Benjamin Franklin Miller is the grandfather who served for the Union in the 3rd Maryland Infantry, Company A.  He is one of many ancestors who served in the Military, and he is the ancestor I used for my initial application to the Daughters of the Union Veterans of the Civil War, Tent 58, Philadelphia, PA.   He is also the initial ancestor that I submitted to apply to as a Charter Member of the newly formed General William W.H. Davis Circle #232, Doylestown, PA of the Ladies of the Grand Army of the Republic.

The other item which I have been slowly working on is an edit of my cousin’s book, Our King Family History, Past and Present.  My cousin Brenda has been collecting data for well over a decade.  She sent me her initial draft in August 2016 as one volume.  Since I received it, she is reminded that I write as much as I talk, as I have expanded her creation into four volumes.   I have been collecting photos and stories to supplement the genealogy she compiled.   I am two-thirds of the way through Part 3.   She has seen the most recent draft and continues to approve my efforts.

As I work on the book and I am thinking what I want to include in my Civil War Ancestor profiles, I realize we are quite fortunate to have photographs of quite a few people rather than just a photo of their headstones.  Anyone who does family research knows that we can find facts fairly easily but not always pictures or stories to accompany those facts.

I pulled together a group of photos with the theme of couples.  This group of family photos show couples in the direct line from myself to some of my two times great grandparents.  The dates of the photographs range from about 1900 to 2012.   This exercise reminded me that we should fill in all the details we recall or can obtain when we add a photo to our collection.

The story for me today in this group was that each couple was married for over 30 years and one couple was married for over 50 years.   There are other details about the group that tell stories like the change from black and white to color photos.  There is a difference in the formal standing studio photos to the standing candids at home to the seated pictures.   If you think about it, there is a story about how prevalent wallpaper was in home decorating in the past.  There is also a change in how weddings and anniversaries are celebrated at outside venues rather than at a small family gathering at home.   There are visible differences in the styles and formality of clothing and hairstyles.  There is even a difference in the practice of not smiling for photographs that changed over time.

I hope you will enjoy this photo story.  Maybe it will stimulate your thoughts about the similarities and the differences in the different photos.  Maybe you can see the family resemblances that I see down the generations.   At the least, it will give you an idea of why I enjoy writing about family research.  As I find facts, stories, and photographs, I start thinking about the life and times of those relatives.  Then I think about how fortunate we are to live in a time where technology makes it possible and fairly easy to obtain and share such information.

Until next time……..