Generations of family photos …

Doing some sorting out this afternoon whilst watching the Olympics, and found some family photos that had belonged to my Great Aunt.  I adored this one, so I thought I’d share a few with you.

It shows my maternal Grandmother Ethel (known as Ettie) on the left and my Great Aunt Muriel on the right. There’s no date on the back, but it judging by their ages it’ll be early 1910s. I just loved Ettie’s nonchalant expression and casual pose, whereas Muriel is the epitome of sweetness – lovely little Yorkshire lasses.

Here they are again (below) in their early twenties, (middle two), and Muriel with the glasses has overtaken Ettie heightwise. Girls about town in Llandudno in 1929.

Finally, here is Ettie (right) with her daughter, my Mum – Maureen in 1931 by which time she was married and living in Belfast, and with me (left) in 1960.

Sadly, she died in 1961 aged only 57 when I was not quite one, so I never knew her, but it is lovely getting acquainted just a little through family photos.

10 thoughts on “Generations of family photos …

  1. debbierodgers says:

    Lovely – thanks so much for sharing!

    My (paternal) grandmother’s name was also Ethel – and she, like yours, was called by a nickname (‘Bet’) all her life.

    I’m sorry you never got to know your gram but having the photos is a wonderful gift.

  2. farmlanebooks says:

    I love that first photo! Old photos are great, but even better when they are your own family. It must be amazing to see your relatives all that time ago.

  3. savidgereads says:

    Oh what a wonderful post to find as, thanks to my new computer, I venture back into the world of other book blogs again.

    There is something so interesting in real peoples, rather than celebrities, pasts that I do wish they would do a ‘Who Do You Think You Are’ series with average joe’s. Having moved to the Wirral recently I discovered Gran’s family were from here and so I have been starting what looks like it will be a long journey into that side of the families past, I am really excited.

    I loved these pictures.

    • gaskella says:

      In with these photos I also found my great-grandmother’s birth certificate and marriage certificate. She was a Rawbone (great surname) and married a Hepworth and came from Ackworth in Yorkshire – so those are a great help to me in tracing my family tree up my mother’s side.

  4. Margaret @ BooksPlease says:

    I’ve been going through family photos too – it’s intriguing and I’d like to know more about my family, but it’s too late now to ask them. But I’ve managed to find some information in the census returns. I have a photo taken in Llandudno of my parents on their honeymoon – I think – and one of me, my sister and parents also in Llandudno in the early 1960’s I thin, taken in a very similar pose to yours – snapped by a street photographer, so we’re all looking rather serious.

    • gaskella says:

      I’m fairly lucky Margaret in the genealogy stakes – one of my Dad’s second cousins has mapped his side of the family tree out back to the 1700s or so. My Mum’s side is less clear as I am in touch with none of her side – the closest are all dead, and I don’t know about the others. However, as she fell out with her father when she came over from Belfast to England and married an Englishman, I know nothing about his heritage at all, which is a shame.

  5. helen says:

    What a lovely post! My parents have a lot of old family photographs and I love looking through them. There is something very special and moving in knowing that these people are a part of you.

    ‘it is lovely getting acquainted just a little through family photos’ – that is it, exactly!

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