A Family Reunion

Longtime readers of my blog may remember this post from May, 2011, in which I described a vintage photo album I bought at an antique show.

Imagine my surprise when I received an email a few weeks ago from one the descendants of the photographer I mentioned in that post, H.G. (Henry) Kidd, whose picture also appears in the album a number of times.

This woman, who lives in British Columbia, asked me some questions about the other photographs in the album and I listed some of the family names that appear in it (lucky for us, someone took the time to write in the names of each of subjects of the photos, which is a rarity in any of the old albums I've seen or purchased) but they weren't the names she was looking for.  She also asked if she could pass on the information about this album to other family members with whom she was in contact by way of the genealogy website, ancestry.ca.

One of those other family members then contacted me and after we traded an email or two back and forth, I offered to sell the album to her, if she would reimburse me for the price I paid for it and the mailing costs to send it to her. She gladly agreed and now that album is on its way to Irma in Saskatchewan for her to treasure.

I have found it quite interesting to hear a bit about the family from these women, their descendants.  I had enjoyed looking at the photos in this album, intrigued by the clothes and the hairstyles from those days long ago, entranced by the expressions on the faces of those posing but now I feel connected to the people in these photos now, almost as if they were my own ancestors.  I am thrilled that the album is going where it belongs, to be cherished by Henry's great-great grandchildren and/or g.g. nieces and nephews.  I don't know how the album came to be in the hands of the antique dealer from whom I bought it here in Ontario but I'm glad to have played a small part in returning it to the family.  I like to think Henry would have wanted it that way.