I love glimpses in to forgotten times. In the future in our digital world, I wonder if things will be "lost" just about as much as daily life from 1916 is to us but because it is buried under all that is saved?

This is another recent find: My stepmother, age 3, with her maternal grandmother in Scotland. The back of the photo says "Marion with Wee Granny." I guess this grandmother wasn't very tall. :-) Wee Granny's name was Marion Orr Hughes. Her daughter Mary emigrated to America with her new husband shortly after their wedding. They returned with their children--a boy, 4, and a girl, 3--for a visit several years later, but never went back after that. It must have been so hard for the parents in the old country . . . no email, no Skype, no jet travel. I've often thought the same thing about the parents of American pioneers. To see their grown children and grandchildren venture out in a covered wagon, not knowing what might befall them. Anyway, here's little Marion and big (or not) Marion.

alisande asked in regard to my Phoebe McCoy: "Jemdandy, how did you learn so much about your g-g-grandmother? Interesting! She looks so at peace in that photo." After I inherited her photo, I did some serious research on her. My break-through came when I traveled to the city library of Winchester, TN in the county where her mother eventually arrived with the Franklin(s). I found a well reserched article by another genealogist that gave me the lead on the origin of her parents in NJ. The best information of all was how and when Jemima (mother of Phoebe) met her husband-to-be and his correct name, Hugh McCoy. The story continues below: It was during the Revolutionary War. Hugh McCoy, a Scotsman, was not a military man and had gone to a seaport town to attend to some business when the Brits grabbed him and said, "You are in the Army now". (He was conscripted for war with the American colonies.) Hugh McCoy was shipped across the ocean and placed in Lord Howe's army at New York. Hugh was wounded and his commander took him to the house of Franklin(s) in NJ to recuperate. While there, his term of enlistment expired and he refused to re-enlist. The daughter of John Franklin, Jemima, had caught his eye and captured his heart. He asked for her hand in marriage. [To date, this is the only source I have found for my Scotish lineage. These Franklin(s) had immigrated from Acton, England.] Using land warrants from the War, these Franklin(s) and their married daughter, Jemima (Franklin) and Hugh McCoy, removed to Burke Co., NC where they aquired land. After Hugh and Jemima (Franklin) McCoy had about 6 children, Hugh supposed that he may have had some property comming to him in Scotland. He embarked on a voyage back home. He and the ship disappeared. It was presumed he had been lost at sea. Several years later, these Franklin(s) (and Jemima and Phoebe) voyaged by wagon train through the Cumberland Gap into Kentucky and eventually arrived on the Elk River in Franklin Co,, TN about 1808. Jemima had married for the second time and outlied her 2nd husband. She married for the 3rd time and outlived that husband by a couple of years. Jemima and her second husband is buried on the family farm. I was privileged to view their headstones and dates on these stones were very readable. John Brown and Phoebe McCoy married in TN, but I have not been able to find any documentation. I do have the birthdates of their children who were born there by calculation from data in Illinois. Also, strangely enough, I know where and the date of Phoebe's demise but can not find anything about her burial.

IdaClaire, such interesting photos. I'm glad to hear you're preserving them. I've scanned a lot of photos, some very old, negatives, slides and tin types. Plus all of our family photos taken over the years. Boxes and boxes, most not yet scanned. I had to ser that project aside for a while, but found it very rewarding. I just had a simple HP flatbed scanner and Photoshop. For people doing a lot of scans, there is equipment that will do batches and much faster. with Photoshop, I could crop, adjust the hue, contrast, saturation and remove or fix some of the artifacts (like your dots). Mold can create "foxing" and many album materials like plastic can leave marks, encourage mold, cause the photos to adhere to the plastic. Cellophane tape leaves brown marks. Inks can flow and transfer to other photos and leak to the image. Nowadays there are special archival quality materials that are kind, but in years past, these were not likely to be (readily) available. You might want to look into a preservationist as well as a scanning service, especially for any photos that are rare. The third photo down looks like a "Rough Rider". My grandfather was a Rough Rider, joining when he was 16 yo (fibbed to join). I have a bunch of photo from that era -- some showing all the tents where they trained (Florida). The men wore various types of "uniforms" -- apparently cobbled together from former campaigns. The uniform on the last chap does look like it belongs in a marching band; or possibly a conductor or circus performer. You might want to run that past an historian, or theatre production person. Someone at your towns historical society might be a good resource. When I was scanning a lot of old black and white family prints from those little booklets the photo shop used to put the 120 prints in, I got a huge kick out of enlarging them on my display screen. A regular wool skirt came alive with memories when I zoomed on it. I could see the flecks of colored wool dots amid the charcoal and found that I could remember that skirt of my mothers in detail and with that came a flood of memories and associations I was not informed of by just viewing the 3x3 inch gray toned glossy print. Now I want to post some of my photos and ask questions! So interesting.