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15
May

Who We Are Today is Directly Connected to Our Family History

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We become who we are after understanding who they were.

This is my grandmother Velma Steward Sanders (center) with her siblings Emma and RT in Navarro County, Texas in 1922.

My sweet grandmother and her sister have lived in the same community in Texas their entire lives! They lived within a mile radius of their siblings.

Their father, Jim, donated the land for the colored school and part of the cemetery in Goodlow, Texas.

Uncle RT went to WWII and served overseas. He’s the baby in the picture, but he’s now 93!

My grandmother will be 97 in June. This picture is a great glimpse into their beginnings. ~shared by @aaronlmyers

#savefamilyphotos #ancestry #familyhistory #oldfamilyphotos #vintagephotos #filmisnotdead #vintagephoto #oldphoto #oldphotos #ancestors #tbt #throwbackthursday

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13
May

Strong Values Passed Down from an Older Generation to a Younger Generation

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I just love this fun photo of my beautiful mother and her friends, circa 1954. My mother, Jacqueline Ann, grew up in a small southern town, Natchitoches, Louisiana. She was fortunate to have strong family connections. And, it was a simpler time. She spent a lot of time with her great-grandmother and her Aunt Frances […]

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11
May

Why Old Family Photos are Our Greatest Treasures

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Mom. Miami Beach, 1950s. My father took this photo of her on the beach, when they were newlyweds. It’s one of a set; the other is a photo of my father, taken by my mother. Being born and raised in South Florida, my Mom loved to be around the water, a love she passed onto […]

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08
May

Our Old Photographs Help Us Remember Where We Come From

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“Everything around us, ourselves included, is in constant change. Photography is our means of capturing now, and to remember where we’ve come from.” -Amanda Van Grandma would have been 86 this year. Here she is teaching home economics. I love her perfect cursive handwriting on the blackboard with the recipe for angel food cake! ~shared […]

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04
May

My Grandparents Archived all of our family photos for future generations

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My grandparents were the repository of all of the family photos. When someone died, all the albums and shoe boxes ended up at my grandparents’ house. There were always old photos to go through when I visited! My grandfather took great pains to reproduce some of these photos. The sight of my grandparents working on […]

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01
May

Family photos are testaments to time, memory and history

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Old photos are testaments to time, to memory, to our human history. But unlike us, they can live forever. Me, Mom and Apollo 13. JFK Space Center, 1970. Different times back then. There was no crazy security; we walked right up. And my Nana, who took this photo, had a great eye! This is straight […]

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28
Apr

Family Vacation Photos are Worth Saving for Future Generations

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As they say, style is something you’re born with!

My sister, my cousins and me on vacation in the early 1980s in Koblevo, a Ukranian resort on the Black Sea, not too far from Odessa. My family loved going on vacation there.

My aunt Irina gave this photo a nickname many years ago: “Julia the Foreigner,” referring to the aviator glasses I was wearing. Aviators were a novelty back then, long before I left Ukraine.

Those fab, fashion-forward sunglasses belonged to my father. I was just sporting them for this family photo. ~shared by @juliarozentalphotography

#savefamilyphotos #familyphotos #familyphoto #ancestry #familyhistory #oldfamilyphotos #vintagephotos #filmisnotdead #vintagephoto #oldphoto #oldphotos #ancestors #familyalbum

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26
Apr

A Vintage Photo Reveals a Simple Moment at a Historic London Landmark

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“You bring to the act of photography all the pictures you have seen, the books you have read, the music you have heard, the people you have loved.” -Ansel Adams My Nana and Uncle Tony in London, feeding the pigeons in Trafalgar Square. Though Trafalgar Square is the largest square in London, and is often […]

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25
Apr

A Portrait of a Grandfather who Overcame Adversity to Start a New Life

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My grandfather was a captain in the Polish army, right before the Nazis invaded.

He spent five years in a concentration camp until liberation by the US Army.

He met my grandma at a liberated camp in Germany. They married, took a free ride on a US Navy vessel to Boston, then a train to Chicago with a few dollars in their pocket to start a new life.

Whenever I’m about to complain, I think of their story and what they went through. And I shut up quick. ~shared by @35_gauge

#savefamilyphotos #familyphotos #familyphoto #ancestry #familyhistory #oldfamilyphotos #vintagephotos #filmisnotdead #vintagephoto #oldphoto #oldphotos #ancestors #familyalbum @militarytimes

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24
Apr

The Oldest Surviving Photograph of My Father as a Young Man in India

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This is the earliest surviving photo of my Dad as a young man.

The photo was taken in a studio in Muktsar, Punjab when he was 16 or 17. It was 1956 or thereabouts.

I often wonder what this young man who had never been out of Punjab, let alone India, would have thought if someone told him what his future had in store? A life in London, and an English wife and children to boot!

Yet this young man left India and went on to become a lecturer in law, a leading Marxist theoretician, and the founding Chairman of the Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist-Leninist). His early years witnessing the bloody end to the British occupation of India had a deep impact on his understanding of imperialism’s divide-and-rule policy. ~shared by @joeteebee

#savefamilyphotos #familyphotos #familyphoto #ancestry #familyhistory #oldfamilyphotos #vintagephotos #filmisnotdead #vintagephoto #oldphoto #oldphotos #ancestors #familyalbum #tbt #throwbackthursday

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