After my Mother passed away in January 1998, my sister Anne and I packed
away her huge collection of family correspondance and memorabilia (most
of it untouched since its origins) into a box marked "Too Uncomfortable
to Deal with Right Now".
In June 1999 I opened it and began to try and make sense of the vast collection of letters, photographs and other stuff. There was one photograph that really kicked things off ... a cricket club photograph from 1929, which I include here (click on the picture to view it in more detail).
Second from the right on the bottom row is my Grandfather, Alf. Alf died many years before I was born. Second from the left on the same row is his brother Tom, and immediately behind Alf is their other brother Jack.
These faces from the past seemed so fresh, real and three dimensional
that I felt compelled to discover more. As my researches progressed, I
realised that I was building not only an archive for my son and his descendants,
but also something that could be of interest to other family members. As
I moved deeper into my ancestors' pasts, it also dawned on me that it was
a way of bringing them back to life in some small way.