Tuesday's Tip ~ Review Your Old Photos

Today's tip is to periodically review your old photographs and always turn the photo over to see what may be written on the other side. Perhaps you'll find a photograph that came to you from one ancestor and it pertains to another ancestor.

In reviewing photographs for a Christmas gift project, I came across a photo that had come to me from my father's mother, Libby (Elizabeth Adsit (Pyle) Rust, 1897-1983).

My husband had originally taken digital pictures of this group of photos five years ago, before I got my portable Flip-Pal scanner. This was also before I had learned very much about my grandfather's childhood home. (See my first blog post.) I had filed this photo in the notebook where I stored other Adsit photos, not realizing what was written on the back. On the back was the following notation.

Hurstmont

I believe this is Libby's handwriting indicating that this is Hurstmont, where her first husband, my paternal grandfather, Charles McAlpin Pyle (1893-1966) grew up.

Perhaps someone knows the date of this photo - if so, please let me know in the comments section below.

January 5, 2013 Update: I emailed this to an acquaintance at the Harding Township Historical Society and she was able to tell me that the photo was taken before 1940 because that year it appeared in a sales brochure for the house. I would still love to narrow down the date of the photo.

By the way, my Christmas gift project was to create a calendar for each of my brothers and my mother and instead of each month showing a photograph of my boys (which we've done for many years), each month had one or two photographs of ancestors, or in this case, an ancestral home.