Interesting Ancestral Photographs

[bethzaring]

I am working with hundreds of family photographs, making sort of a glorified photo album. Some photos I find utterly facinating and will post a few of them here. But I may need some guidance on posting, they seem to post rather small in size. I am re-scanning with a 200dpi to see if I can get them to post larger?

Here goes, this is my grandmothers family, my grandmother is standing in the back row. Not counting the dog, she is the fourth from the left, standing between two of her brothers. Her parents are seated front and center, they are my great grandparents. All ten of their children are in the photo. I have questions on the guttering system of this house. The great grandparents were born and raised in Yadkin County North Carolina, but this house was built in rural Henry County Indiana. They were farmers.

 

[bethzaring]

I am having severe internet connection issues, so will try to post photos one at a time.

Have to give up for now

 

[redkitty]

Wow Beth, ten children! Very cool that you have so many old photos too work with. I love the little dog sitting still for the photo too! Really love that big house.

 

[Uncle Bob]

Wow Miss Beth...what a joy (job) you have in front of you...I say "job" because when My Mother passed away in 2005 I inherited boxes of old family photographs...along with my own unorganized "stuff' it is a mountain of pictures, so it will be (has been) a job to sort, and organize it all. I must write on the back who is in a lot of them, because future generations, starting with my kids want have a clue who they are...I have so much to do...So hurry up and finish yours, so you can come help me!!!

 

[MexicoKaren]

What a beautiful old house...can you just imagine how much work it was to build without any power tools!

 

[Wart]

But I may need some guidance on posting, they seem to post rather small in size. I am re-scanning with a 200dpi to see if I can get them to post larger?

Probably not by using the attachment feature.

Attachment graphics in the post are resized to 320 pix, these graphics are links to larger versions which are limited/resized to 800x600. I have included an example of attachment resizing at the bottom of this post. I initially tried uploading a 3000x2000 picture, it was too large to be processed so I resized the picture to 1500x1000. This resized graphic was small enough for the sites software to work with. Conclusion: No matter how large a graphic one attempts to post the graphic appearing in the post will top out at 320 pixels wide, the linked graphic will max at 800 pixels wide, and too large of files cannot be processed.


Full sized graphics can be posted once the graphics have been placed on a web server. The space I use for DC can be viewed here : Index of / . I pay for my web server/space. There are free web hosting services but you must make sure they allow remote linking to data.

One method of posting full sized images is by using the IMG tags. Vbulletin downloads the image and if oversized will resample it to, I believe , 800 pixels in width. I have not included an example of this type of graphics posting because I believe the full sized image is downloaded and I don't wish to inconvenience people on dial up or slower connections.


My preferred method of posting large graphics is to take the graphic I want people to see is to resample the graphic to a much smaller (pixel) size and compress it to an even smaller data file size. I then post this small graphic and make it a link to the larger version using the URL and IMG tags:



This way people don't have to sit through a long download of something they may not care to see.

 

[Wart]

BTW, when I use to scan I would use a large resolution (400 or better) and save the scan in a raw data format.

 

[bethzaring]

thanks wart, I guess folks will have to click on the image to get the enlargement. hmmm, I usually scan at 300.
So, while I have a connection...will try to post the photo of the roof. Anyone understand why the gutters were placed here?
I do not know when this house was built. But the majority of the ten children were raised in it. Yep, no electrical wires to the house

 

[bethzaring]

and a photo of my grandfather, who married the grandmother above...


dang, here comes another storm, hope this posts

 

[bethzaring]

great grandfather hauling wood in 1910

 

[bethzaring]

my grandfather at school. This photo includes his two sisters. Grandpa has the 4 written over his head

 

[texasgirl]

Great old photos!! I love to look at the black and whites. But, have you noticed in those old photos that people didn't smile?? What is up with that? I guess if I lived without electricity or running water I wouldn't be a happy person either. LOL

 

[Barbara L]

Great old photos!! I love to look at the black and whites. But, have you noticed in those old photos that people didn't smile?? What is up with that? I guess if I lived without electricity or running water I wouldn't be a happy person either. LOL

I don't know about these particular photos, but with some of the earliest cameras the people being photographed had to sit or stand for an extended amount of time, and it was hard to hold a smile that long (especially, I would think, in a large group photo).

Barbara

 

[buckytom]

beth, your pics are fascinating.

there are several reasons for why people didn't smile in old pics.

barbara's explanation of the exposure time is the most common and reasonable. it would be tough to hold a smile for that long.

but cultural aspects, everything from poor dental care to the assumption that a photographed smile was likened to pornography, also has been thought to be the reason for the grim faces.

since a photograph was almost always done professionally back then, people took the occasion and no doubt the cost into account and treated the event very seriously.

it's interesting what tg said. indoor plumbing and power happened to become more common around the same time that film speeds increased, and cameras became available to common people. so maybe she's on to something, lol.

 

[bethzaring]

this is one of the older photos I presently have, I have yet to take possession of some much older family photos, this is my great great great grandfather on his horse in front of his house in Sandwich New Hampshire, taken about 1870

 

[bethzaring]

and this photo is of my great great grandparents with their only two grandchildren. The grandchildren are my grandmother, in front, and her sister, behind her, who would eventually raise my father after my grandmother dies. This is the only photo I have of this great great grandmother, I have many of the old man. The old man is a son of the gentleman on the horse in the above photo. This photo was taken about 1895.

 

[bethzaring]

here is a "recent" one, from 1937, this is my mom with three of her high school friends after church. Mom is on the right.

 

[bethzaring]

my mom and her parents went camping a lot, from the early 1920's into the 1930's. Here is one photo when mom was about 6 years old, with her dad.

maybe 2 pictures here?

 

[Andy M.]

Beth, I can't explain the gutter systems on that old farm house.

The gutters visable on the main roof and the right side of the porch roof have no downspouts. When it rains, the gutters would fill with water and overflow at the low point(s). If the low points for the gutters on the main roof are at the corners in the valleys or at the ridge corner that's visable, the overflow would feed into the gutters on the porch roof.

Maybe there was a rain barrel at the forward end of the right side porch roof gutter...

 

[bethzaring]

Beth, I can't explain the gutter systems on that old farm house.

The gutters visable on the main roof and the right side of the porch roof have no downspouts. When it rains, the gutters would fill with water and overflow at the low point(s). If the low points for the gutters on the main roof are at the corners in the valleys or at the ridge corner that's visable, the overflow would feed into the gutters on the porch roof.

Maybe there was a rain barrel at the forward end of the right side porch roof gutter...

Thanks for looking Andy. I'm seeing 2 down spouts from the main roof and 3 down spouts from the two porches. I guess I'm wondering why the gutters are so high up on the roofs. It does seem like they are collecting rain, but why not hang the gutters like they are today? I will have to look for more photos of this house. I really need to organize these photos.