It's true! A picture tells a thousand words...

I can hardly believe that only a couple of weeks ago, I was bemoaning bitterly that it just wasn't fair that I had no photographs to add to the tree.

It is quite astonishing that only a fortnight later I have so many photographs, gathered together and lent to me by various members of the family to scan and include in the tree on Ancestry.com. And there these photographs will stay, electronically shared between us all. It is absolutely fantastic and I am so grateful to those who have entrusted me with the precious originals so that I can scan them in (EL, RWY, AY).

In many cases, the scanning process enhances the value of the photograph somewhat because you can zoom right in and see detail, focus on a face that previously was lost to time. I can see clearly where family likenesses have come from, and I can marvel that some strong facial characteristics have seemingly not been passed down at all. Perhaps they'll emerge one day long from now in some future child who seems, like William, to not really take after anyone in the family.

I can't describe how it makes me feel to be able to set eyes on my ancestors. Some of the photographs - like for example, that of a beautiful lady in full crinoline, I had seen all my life. Yet seeing the photograph again just now, and reading the notes on the back penned by my maternal grandfather, I find that she is Ophelia Blake, my great-great grandmother. And even my grandfather, her grandson, did not in his notes know her name; he simply referred to her as Miss -?- Blake. I wonder how it can be that such a beautiful name can be forgotten by one's own grandchild! - but there you are.

Most of the faces, male and female, I find disarmingly attractive and I think that this must be because they share family characteristics with those whom I love: I instantly feel warmth towards them. I wonder if, wherever they are, they are looking down on me rediscovering them and are pleased that they haven't been entirely forgotten? -And there are a couple of faces who to me, look cold and unfriendly, unfamiliar, disinterested in whether I care for them or not.
After all, when I've finished a late scanning session the monochrome faces stay with me throughout the night, weaving in and out of broken dreams, muttering their names in my mind.

Lately, Benny has taken to coming and getting on my knee when I am working and asking, "Whooosaat??!" when he sees another sepia-tinted face on the computer screen. I delight in telling him, "That is your great-great-great so-and-so," and he tries to repeat it after me. I can only pray that at least one of them will love where they have come from as much as I do.