Some Things I've Been Thinking About

My granddaughter is here visiting this week.  The tomatoes, zucchini and cucumbers  have taken over the garden.   My husband's dna results came through on Ancestry.  And my parents loaned me an old photo album to scan. 

We can't eat or give away the cukes and zukes fast enough, but the latest bunch of tomatoes is cooking on the stove.   My granddaughter loves to read and to cook, so while she reads, I've been scanning pictures.  Between reading sessions, we've been baking.  And I've been looking over the dna results whenever I get a few minutes.

My husband's dna results did not provide any surprises and so far not many interesting connections or leads, but I hope that changes as time goes on.  Several of his lines have been in America for a very long time.  (He has Mayflower connections, early Concord, Massachusetts connections, New Amsterdam connections, Scots Irish connections.)  So it is not surprising that his results show him as 52% Great Britain, 19% Western Europe, 17% Ireland.  I'm looking forward to seeing what new information comes of the results as more people do the test.

The pictures I've been scanning are from the Cross and Stauble familes of the Stoney Creek Township area of Henry Co., Indiana.   They were obviously important enough to whoever owned the them that they were carefully mounted in the album with photo corners.  From the age of some of the pictures, I suspect they originally belonged to my grandmother, though the album came to my parents through my aunt.

Some of the photos have identification and information on the back.  Most do not.  Some of the people I recognize.  Most I don't.

one of the unidentified pictures from the Cross/Stauble photo album

Like the photos from Hankinson that I've posted, many of these people are now mysteries, because there is no longer anyone alive who knows who they were.   I'm always struck by this same realization when I come across a box of old photos in an antique store; most of them have no identification on them.

I understand why this is, because I do it myself.  I know who the people are in my photo albums, so why take the time to write on every picture?  But, of course, this is a mistake.  Someday I won't be around to say, "Oh, that is my friend, Gail.  We were camping at Versailles State Park.  I think we were about 20."  And that picture will be a mystery that ends up in a box, and the story it could tell will be lost.

Before I return the album to my parents, I am going to identify everyone I recognize by writing on the back of each picture.  And I'm going to include identifying information in the file name of each of the scans.

As for my own albums, well, I'm working on it.