Treasure your Photographs

At a recent family function, my grandmother arrived with a photo album in her hands. She handed it to me and told me to take a look. I opened it to find old family photos. One of my great grandfather and his friends on the day he graduated from Boys High School in New Orleans around the turn of the last century, as well as Confirmation photos of Aunts and Uncles. There was also an old photo of my great great great grandmother.
This was a real eye opener for me because my grandmother (as well as most of the rest of my family) was completely wiped out by Hurricane Katrina. According to her, she had lost all of her old photos. Because of this, I never thought to ask her, four years later, if she had been able to recover any of them. As it turned out, she had been able to salvage a dozen out of hundreds. Yet that was enough to make me happy.

"Why didn't you tell me about this!" I exclaimed. "Well," she said, "I didn't think you would care about an old picture of someone like my Aunt Ida..." I could have knocked her over the head, figuratively speaking of course. I explained to her that, as a genealogist, all of these things are important to me. They all provide clues and connections to the past. Then came the argument...the photos were faded and damaged. I insisted they be restored. She insisted it was too costly. Finally, I agreed to take the photos and pay to have them restored.

What is interesting about this is that my grandmother will painstakingly restore and old piece of furniture that is a "family heirloom" or have a painting restored without question, and yet these snapshots of the past are not valuable to her. I have ceased to attempt reasoning as to why this is.

I have many other family photos from other members of the family. Each is a treasure unto itself. I copy them, catalog them, display them and store them. I intend to do the same with my grandmother's photos. In this day, when technology can go beyond the damage of an old photo, there is not excuse not to have them restored. I encourage everyone to do this. There are many companies out there that will do the restoration or repair for you for varying prices. In addition, it is not out of the question for some to digitize them yourself if they are not in need of repair.

Please do this. Family photographs are just as much an "heirloom", in a sense, as a piece of furniture, clothing, or linens. Go on the web to sites such as
http://genealogy.about.com/od/digital_editing/Digital_Editing_Restoration_How_to_Restore_Old_Photos.htm
or ask around your community. In addition, some places such as Walgreens do some restorative work on photos.
Take care of them! In some cases, it is all that was left behind.

Beyond the Vault: Making Connections at the Cemetery

What I love the most about visiting New Orleans' cemeteries, besides the architecture, is the information they hold. Visiting the cemeteries has filled in quite a few holes for me as far was my genealogy research and in some odd way, they make connections.

My first experience with this was my great-great maw maw. Yes, maw maw. Her name was Anna Costa Diliberto. I knew that she married Salvatore Diliberto and that both were probably immigrants from Sicily. I had no idea who her parents were, where she really came from, etc.

I was visiting St. Louis #3 and was actually looking for the tomb of a completely different branch of the family. Upon looking at the "map" in the cemetery office, I found a wall vault with "Costa" marked on it. I visited the spot and found the burial place of Anna, her daughter, her granddaughter and her father! This one little vault held the names and dates of three relatives of mine that I didn't even know existed until then!

This opened the door to finding that her native land was a suburb of Palermo. She came across the ocean with her sister and a cousin in 1882 and married another Sicilian in New Orleans in 1886. Later she brought over her father, presumably after he was widowed. She had five children as well. As the information started to surface, family members began volunteering information. I found out that while on a trip back to Sicily, her husband died there and she received what they called a "black letter".

How difficult this must have been to lose your husband so far away. He is buried there as they could not afford to bring his body back. 15 years later she would lose her 12 month old granddaughter, Marie, who is buried with her. As I wondered about the strength and patience of this person who was my great great grandmother, an Aunt of mine gave me a gift for Christmas. It was a photograph she had found of Anna and all five of her children. It was beautiful!

It was as though, over the course of a few months, I found Anna Costa at the cemetery and because of that, she came to life for me. Her struggles, decisions and triumphs all came together. I finally felt that, in some way, I had connected. It can happen for any of us. Just a visit to the cemetery can bring an ancestor into your life so that you may glimpse some of theirs.

Just a note to Genealogists: The Historic New Orleans Collection now has electronic obituary index available. This can be very helpful in finding the resting places of your ancestors!
http://www.hnoc.org/collections/online-catalogue.html#