I have several boxes of old family photographs, some dating back the 1880s. Just about everyone on my dad's mother's family tree prior to 1955 is represented, and a good number of the other branches of my relatives.

There are a lot of large portraits of individuals and brides. This is my dad when he was a young boy, it measures 8 by 11 and is in a nice folder.



I have the pictures sorted into large envelopes by family and these are only two of the boxes.



I had these out in case I would need to evacuate because of the forest fire, and then a long-lost cousin stopped by and I promised to scan some of the pictures and send her a DVD.

This is my grandmother (little girl on the right), her mother and siblings in 1892 before they moved from Ballston Spa, New York to Berthoud, Colorado on the train. The dad was already in Colorado. He was a superintendent of schools in New York and founded a bank in Berthoud.



In 1961 my grandmother wrote a narrative of their move to Colorado and mentioned that the Thompsons, a wealthy family in Ballston Spa loaned my great grandfather money to invest in Colorado, and he always paid them back. Looking through what I have, I found several photographs of people in Ballston Spa who are not related to us, and there was a picture of Mrs. Thompson. The writing in blue just below the picture is my grandmother's hand and it says: "Mrs Thompson Wealthy Family Back East."



One of these days I will try to track down the descendants of some of these people who aren't related to us to see if they want some of these pictures of their ancestors.

Here are a couple of my favorite pictures, Lizzie Hallowell, my great-great-great grandmother and the house at 127 Front Street in Schenectady, New York where she lived. I used Street View in Google Maps to visit that site, and looks like it's been torn down, but I recognize the corner. I scanned them as one because they belong together.