Sidewalk Photographers - the other side of the coin

Whistling Bird, the Arizona Cowboy and the Disappearing Lady
The 83rd Carnival of Genealogy, hosted by Janet Isles at her blog Janet the Researcher, is entitled Play Me, and encourages Geneabloggers to write about a musical instrument that they or other family members have played. Apart from my youngest daughter and aunt who both, lik

Digging for gold on the wild West Coast
Nola Sinclair recently sent me scans of a couple of engaging cartes de visite by H.H. Vorley of Westport, Charleston and Reefton, on the West Coast of New Zealand, who I have featured in a previous Photo-Sleuth article. She explained that "the subjects in the photo are a family of my husband's Shetland Island forebears who came to Charleston in 1876 to mine the sands at Nine Mile Beach for gold. We have been trying to get a fairly exact date so we can work out who the children are likely to be, in order to make sure that it is indeed the family we think it is."This challenge require

Have space suit - Will travel
Almost a year ago I posted this image of a rather bizarre transportation device in an article on Photo-Sleuth in the hope that readers would be able to help solve the mystery of what exactly it was, and why it appears in my aunt's collection of old family photographs. The footnoteMaven's 18th Smile for the Camera Carnival has the theme of "Travel" and seems an opportune moment to revisit the subject, summarizing what I've learnt.

All lined up in the school playground in their Sunday best
I have wondered, when looking at old school photographs from the Victorian period, whether the children are wearing their ordinary everyday school clothes, or if an impending visit from the photographer was enough of an occasion for their parents to dress them in their Sunday best. I found mention of poor attendance on school photos day in 1881 recorded in a school log book from the Talgarth district of Powys, Wales (Victorian Powys), ascribing the childrens' absence to their not possessing decent clothes for the special day:At 11 a Photographer came to take a view of the buildings. A very thin atte

Musing in Manhattan
Chrysler Building, New York City, 1931Platinum print by Margaret Bourke-WhiteImage © Time-Life & courtesy of Gallery MMotivated - perhaps inspired would be a better word - by Colleen Fitzpatrick's Forensic Genealogy mystery photo contes