So Many Goodies Coming to Lost Faces Photo Albums!

Look what arrived yesterday! Yep, another rescued antique photo album! Number 81.....and yes, it will be going online on my Lost Faces website ASAP.

I can't resist these beautiful albums with identified photos inside. They're never my ancestors but I still am driven to save them from being lost and forgotten.

I finally had a chance to unpack this album today and believe me, it was hard to wait. I'm like a kid at Christmas with these gorgeous albums chock full of family memories and treasures.

It's easy to picture what the album looked like when new. It would have been gleaming, clean and shiny. Imagine the family's excitement (or more likely the wife's excitement) when she bought it to put her treasured photos in.

Just look at this beauty! I am always so anxious to get going on the photgraphs - the CDVs, cabinet cards and tintypes, but I force myself to go slow. My first step is always to document the album and the order of photos inside, with camera pictures. That can help identify any photos that do not have names on them.

So I had a sneak peek and took a few camera photos to start the process. Let me share those with you.

 first page. It is empty but the name of the person whose photo was originally there is intact. That helps put together family groups and identify the family who may have originally owned the photo album. This empty page has the inscription  And the hunt is on! I'm so curious - who was Aunt Mariah? And was her husband's name really Whittier? It is difficult to read and I'm hoping that getting further into the album will reveal if I've managed to decipher it correctly.

The next page was just as intriguing. The photo slot was empty but written on the album page was "Aunt Hattie White's child" When oh when will I get to that ingriguing photo peeking out on the right? That was all I had time for today but tomorrow I will be back at the puzzle and continue with taking my camera photos and carefully documenting the album.

Please see Part 1 and Part 2 for the start of this process of how I rescue, archive, and publish on Lost Faces antique photo albums I save from disappearing.