Moments in Time

Blogs which describe moments in my life, or the lives of my family.

Found Objects – Glass Negatives

Among the many photographs from my mother’s side of the family are a few negatives, including two of glass. A quick Google search and I found this website. Apparently, there are two principal kinds of glass plate negatives: Collodion Wet Plate and Gelatine Dry Plate. I’m almost certain the negatives

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Found objects – Images

Now and again I pull out one of the large plastic tubs which house the memorabilia I brought from my parent’s house. Much of the memorabilia is letters, documents and various bits of paper, written in Russian or German. There is not very much in English. If I ever have

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Researching Family History – the frustrations

Last year, I wrote this post about four ways to research your family history. This week I discovered the limitations of research while I was writing an essay for my study. The task was to write a short narrative on a person, place, time or event, using techniques based on

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Filling in the gaps

I have several genealogical charts of my father’s family. A couple of them comprise the entire family, one of them is only of my father’s direct family, and one of them includes the children of the females in the family. All of them contain valuable information; names, birth dates, dates

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The Traps of Translation

When I closed the door for the last time to my father’s house, I took with me boxes of documents, certificates, letters and bits of paper with scribbles on them. Most of these were either in German or Russian. I can order a coffee in German. I can count to

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Practically Perfect in Every Way

Yesterday I saw “Mary Poppins Returns” with a friend of mine. It was a welcome break from writing about my father and the traumas he and his family went through. I had just finished the chapter where his brother is killed in action during WWII and was beginning the one

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