My dad has the orginal picture and I have a copy. It is my great-grandfather in his blacksmith shop. We think it was taken in the 1890’s period. This shop was located in downtown New Orleans on Lee Circle, the big statue of Robert E. Lee. He is standing in the shop with 5 other workers repairing a horse drawn buggy.
My great grandfather died in 1968 at the age 0f 94. I can still remember him coming over and sitting in the backyard shucking oysters with my dad and feeding them to me and my sisters. He was a character too. His right index finger was missing the last two joints and he told me and my three sisters each a different story about how he lost his finger. We did not realize that he had done this until many years later when we were sitting around talking about him. We had quite a good time as we each recounted our on personal version of the missing finger.
I have a picture of my Mom’s dad ( born 1895) at about the age of 1 sitting on the floor with his parents sitting in chairs in the shot. On the wall are hanging portraits of their parents ( don’t know which side) so, it is way cool.
The oldest known photo I have is a tiny, faded picture of my great-grandmother. She died in 1900, so I know it has to be at least that old.
That photo is pasted onto her bible that was handed down to me, and in the back of the bible in a hidden flap I found two photos of an old gentleman with a cane. I have absolutely no idea who this man is or why his picture was in her bible, but I’m guessing that he must be a relative and it looks to be from around the same era.
I have a few photos of my great-great-grandparents circa 1905-1910.
I agree with the poster above who mentioned old photos for sale. I think that’s incredibly sad. I was at an estate sale once where basically the entire contents of a home was out on the front lawn, including a large table of family photographs (from early 1900s). There were photos, in order, of this couple from their dating years, to their marriage, honeymoon (they travelled around the world, apparently), through the birth of their children and the rest of their lives. The sad thing was that this couple still had living relatives that obviously didn’t care what happened to the photographs.
I was absolutely fascinated with these photos. I would have bought them all simply to keep them together, but unfortunately an antique dealer beat me to the deal and bid far more than I could afford.
I still wonder what happened to all those photos.
Sad.
I forgot to mention in my earlier post that my Dad and his brother have both done family history type books about their family (my Dad went back to his mother’s parents and came forward; his brother traced their dad’s side all the way back the ancestor who came to the colonies in 1655 as an indentured servant). Both included photos/tintypes in their books; my uncle had the family Bible which had quite a few pictures between it’s pages. Nothing back to 1655, mind you (LOL) but several from the early 19th century.