Monday, September 16, 2013

Who's Face Was That?

by Jena Galifany

I love to spend time trying to back track my family history. We do have the occasional highlights in the family tree. On my mother's side, she is third cousin to Winston Churchill, a fact that shows up with a look at my brother.


The thing that amazes me the most is how the faces keep being handed down. They may skip a generation or two, but there are several repeat performances.


One such repeat had my father baffled at how my younger sister could be in a picture with our mother when Mom was only fifteen. It turned out that the one who Sherri shares a face with was my dad's sister, Julia. Daddy didn't figure it out until my uncle told him he should recognize his own baby sister.



Then there is my niece, Talena and my father's Aunt Cornie. The hair styles were definitely different, but the face is the same.

I have been privileged to share a face with my Grandmother Margie Pearl, my dad's mother. The older I get, the more I look like her.





The most fun I've had matching the faces in my family photo collection is this set. It shows me in the first photo. The second photo is me again, the baby sitting on my Grandmother's lap. The third photo is my son, Nick.
 It amazes me how the genetics work to pass a face down through the years. Last but not least, my mother has the Churchill look down pat. Don't you think? After all, they are third cousins.


I hope I've not bored you too much with my comparisons of the family faces that have been handed down over the years. There are others but I didn't want to be known as the blogger with the "old home movies".

I do want to point out that it is important to record all that you can about your family history. My mother is the last survivor of her family. She is the youngest of fifteen children. She never thought it was important to listen to the old stories Now she wishes she had because there is no one left to ask. We have a large collection of photographs from years gone by but there is no one to ask who the people are in the photos.

If you have elderly in your family and you have photos, have a reunion and spent time writing down who is who as well as anything else you can find out about your heritage. It will mean a lot to the generations that come after you. Especially if they happen to see their own face in one of those old photos.
 ________________


Cheers!

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8 comments:

Jannine Gallant said...

Really fun post, Jena. Love the resemblances. I agree - get those stories and picture identifications while you still can. We had some photos that were so old even my grandma wasn't sure who some of the people were!

Barbara Edwards said...

Loved this. I inherited my mother's pictures and have spent years going through them, trying to figure out who is who. At least to do put the names on the back.

JenaGalifany said...

I've asked my mother to do that with ones that she does know but it is not as many as she wishes.

Leah St. James said...

Great post, Jena! I love comparing faces and finding similarities. And you're so right on the importance of preserving family memories.

Alicia Dean said...

This is fascinating! I never thought to do that, but the repeated faces thing would be so much fun. I definitely saw the resemblances. Very cool!

Diane Burton said...

What a great post, Jena. I've seen repeated faces in our family, too. Very interesting. You're right about asking the older generation to tell stories and identify people in pictures. With our parents gone, Hubs & I are the ones to tell the stories now.

Talki200 said...

Hey Aunt Mouse. My other half was looking himself up on google to see what popped up & it made me curious to do the same. I had NO IDEA this was here!! Its really cool!!! <3 <3 Luv Ya!!

Brenda Whiteside said...

You've reminded me I have a huge box of my mother-in-laws family tree research. It was left to me to complete and I've neglected it for over 20 years. It's time to dig it out! Great post.