Victorian Autograph Album

One of my cousins is the custodian of this family heirloom, a late-Victorian autograph album that belonged to a great-great-aunt of ours. Many of her friends and relatives signed the book and entered little poems typical of the day. I believe that my paternal grandmother is one of the contributors.

When I was in grade school, I had a much smaller autograph book and my grandmother and grandfather both signed it. I hope it will resurface during spring cleaning.

(Photos copyright and courtesy of my cousin, dsg.)

Oil Portrait of Anna Altmeyer, One of My Second Great-Grandmothers

Oil Portrait of Anna Altmeyer, One of My Second Great-Grandmothers, originally uploaded by confections.

Anna Altmeyer was born on 9 July 1844 in Michelbach, Saarland, Germany, and died on 18 October 1889 in Mifflin, Allegheny, Pennsylvania. Her parents were Nicholas Altmeyer and Catharine Baecker.

She arrived in New York City at the age of ten with her parents and three brothers and three sisters on 4 August 1854. The ship "Marcia C. Day" had sailed from Le Havre, France.

She married at the age of seventeen on 18 January 1862. This portrait dates from approximately 1865 when she was twenty-one years of age.

She was my paternal grandfather's maternal grandmother. My cousin Ron generously shared this image with me.

My Victorian Grand-Aunts Galbraith

My Victorian Grand-Aunts Galbraith, originally uploaded by confections.

These stylish ladies are the sisters of my maternal grandfather. I love their Victorian grandeur. Several of them were schoolteachers and never married; they tatted and painted on china and traveled abroad. My mother remembers playing dress-up with her sister from a trunk full of their cast-off dresses. Their mother was a dressmaker before she married my great-grandfather.

I recently began to do some serious genealogy on-line and found a long-lost cousin in North Carolina who had this photo and several dozen others from my mother's family that we had never seen. What a treasure!