Way Back Wednesday: Genealogy Photographs Coming Soon –

I’ve been toying with the idea of adding a Genealogy tab to the blog for a while. I have a couple of boxes of very old photographs. When I say Way Back Wednesday, I don’t mean we will be posting our old school pictures from elementary or the pictures from when my kids were toddlers. I mean much farther back than that. I mean Way, Way, Way Back Wednesday. Some of my photos are from prior to the 1900’s. Many could be of interest to a lot of researchers with family ties to East Central Indiana.

Many of my old photographs and tintypes focus on families with ties to Randolph County and Wayne County of Indiana, but some will be intriguing to an even wider audience. Many display an interesting perspective on American History from a bygone era. Some are just amusing pictures in general that will make you wonder what in the world these people were doing or thinking.

I’ve always wanted the descendants of the subjects in my photographs to have access to them because I don’t consider them just my photos.

They are our ancestors, and they belong to all of us!

I’ve tried to put as many of the photographs out on the world wide web as I can. I’ve shared to a variety of message boards, genealogy forums, and local history Facebook groups, but that feels very scattered to me. I’ll sometimes get vague, random emails from people saying, “I saw the picture you posted. Can you tell me more about the person? I think it might be my great-[insert relative of choice].” It’s usually about a picture I posted ten years ago, and I have to reply asking them, “What picture exactly? Where did you see it? How did I have it labeled?” I’ve posted dozens of pictures in dozens of places.

I’ve never had just one place to easily post these ancient photos to try to connect them with the rightful descendants and cousins. Hopefully, posting them here will give me an easy way to share them and a single location where I can direct people who ask me about them. I’m also starting to understand enough about Google SEO (Search Engine Optimization) that I think I will be able to make them visible to people who might type the name of the subject(s) in as search terms.

I hoping to make this just a quick Way Back Wednesday post every week or at least every other week where I share one photo from my genealogy collection and then tell a little bit of what I know about the people or subject of the photo.

For the privacy of everyone involved, I will not share photographs of living individuals without their permission. If you happen to find one of your own ancestors or relatives in one of my posts, definitely let me know in the comments. I would love to hear from you! Absolutely share with other relatives who might be interested. There are share buttons embedded in every post to make it easy for you to share with others on social media. If you save the photo to post elsewhere, please link back to me, or leave my blog address on the photo, so others can find their way here.

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Way Back Wednesday – Coming Soon to The House That Never Slumbers!

The first Way Back Wednesday is scheduled for next week. Be sure to subscribe to The House That Never Slumbers, so you won’t miss it!