“Instant ancestors” is what my mother used to call the abandoned photographs of people from another era that are found in every antique and junk shop. As the walls in our home were filled with similar photographs of relatives-made-real to me by grandmothers and grandfathers who told of their lives. I didn’t understand what she meant.
I could not imagine why anyone would ever purchase those pictures and I felt sad about it for I understood that those pictured had been living, breathing people with jobs, loves, joys and disasters, and that no one living remembered them. What Mom meant by “instant ancestors” was that some shoppers could frame these interesting pictures, hang them on the wall, and you see, have instant aunts, uncles, grannies, etc.
The reason for purchasing such pictures is really the same as it was for my family to display photographs of our relatives ... because they are part of our continuing story, give us a sense of our past so we may understand more clearly our present, and perhaps give us a glimpse of our future.
Ancestor pictures still line the halls in our home, added to yearly by baby and other photographs of the current “ancestors-to-be” that live there now. Ancestor pictures give our families the ability to relate to their past in an intensely personal way as they are not just names, but grandparents and great grandparents pictured as small children. No one looking at these chubby toddlers who later became frail and ill grandfathers can ever doubt that history does and WILL repeat itself! We all grow older, if not up, and family photographs are a way of learning about that process and valuing each stage.
Taking family photographs is a wonderful way to begin recording your family history. Any time is the best time for these photos, every family gather, each wedding, funeral, each graduation, trip, football game, school play, etc., needs to be recorded. Photographs provide wonderful records of growth of children, of places and events that memory alone is inadequate to recall. In families where these photographs are kept and shared, children develop a sense of family and begin to understand that there was a time before “today” and there was time even before that! Seeing photographs of Mom or Dad as teenagers, perhaps going to a dance, or as a young child in a school play, helps contribute to understanding other generations. Children come to understand, without direct teaching, that though they might not think so, their parents and grandparents WERE young once. Eventually young people understand that similarities do exist across age, that teenagers in the past were excited about music and activities similar to those currently in style, and perhaps that each age has advantages and disadvantages.
As important as taking photographs is the preserving of photographs. Almost every household has a box of untitled photographs with person kin-but-unknown to the present generation. (That is how those pictures come to be in the antique shops.) Keeping picture albums and scrapbooks is the best way I know to organize and protect these treasures. Putting names and dates on them is critical! All too many babies look a lot alike and it is difficult to remember after the fact just what was the date Mary’s first tooth was pulled? If you have been taking lots of pictures but pasting none into books, a good holiday project for that week after Christmas might be to start putting books together. If you have very many pictures, the idea of beginning can be overwhelming, so just start where you are, with THIS Christmas ... when these rolls are developed, label and date the pictures, put them in a book, and go forward! As you have time, try to go “backward”, to get pictures out, date and label them, and put in a few each week.
As you collect your pictures into books, you may find your children enjoy looking back through family albums. Listen to their words and look at their faces, as they see and recall past events that they really may have been too young to remember fully. Family stories and family pictures go hand in hand and give children sense of belonging. Finding that their activities are valued enough to be photographed creates in children a sense of accomplishment which directly increases self-esteem and self-confidence. The greatest gift parents can give children is that feeling of belonging, of being important, of being a part; family pictures, recording your continuing story, is a wonderful and simple way to do this.
