52 Ancestors Week 40: Oldest

 From Amy Johnson Crow: Week 40's theme is "Oldest." Some ideas for this week: the oldest child in a family, the oldest (longest lived) ancestor in your family tree, or the oldest document you've found.

A long time ago at a kitchen table far, far away....

In 2018, "Oldest" was a prompt for that year's #52Ancestors and I answered the question on WikiTree. You can see the thread here. I basically talked about a few odds and ends. Namely old objects I had, oldest ancestor I ever met and a few other things. This year, I'm going to do things a little differently. I can't keep repeating the same thing over and over, right? I don't want to get stale! I thought long and hard about what I should write about and I think I've found something. 

Back in black. (and white)

You've all seen this picture on the blog before, right? I've posted a few dozen times by now. It's a picture of my great-grandparents, Vincenzo Ferraiolo, Maria Tedesco and their children Nicolina and Marco. They had just arrived in America and someone took the picture. I don't know if it was right off the boat! Do you see any bags? No, it was probably taken a little later that week maybe. I have no clue and neither does my great-aunt!

This is actually the oldest picture I have of my grandfather. I don't have many pictures of him as he died when I was four. The last few times I put the picture on the blog, it looked a little off and I cleaned it up thanks to my paint program. This is actually a copy my family had that we scanned. It looked a little green and I converted it to black and white. Looks pretty good, no?

How I got it in the first place is a bit of an interesting story.  A few Thanksgivings ago I was in Virginia visiting my brother and his family. I was talking genealogy with my great-aunt's daughter via e-mail and she said aunt Nickie had some pictures for me. Naturally, I was excited. Who wouldn't be excited to get pictures of your ancestors and relatives?

My cousin wasn't sure how to send everything. So, I told her to just take a pic using her phone and send it as an attachment. She said she would try to do that and would try to find some pictures for me. Fast forward a couple days later and my Ipad starts pinging with e-mail notifications. We were eating dinner and I wondered what was going on. Clearly I was popular that night.

I opened my iPad and checked my mail. In my inbox were a ton of pictures. A. TON. Included in the mix was a copy of the Ferraiolo family picture. Several other pictures were included. But, that one quickly became my favorite. It's the oldest picture I have of Grandpa Marco and is probably the best one because we didn't really have any pictures of Maria. 

As I look at the picture now, I can see more detail than I did before. Everyone is posed in a great way. The kids aren't smiling so much. But, that's okay. You couldn't really hold a smile for photos in those days. Everyone looked great and looked like they were ready to embark on a journey in America. Corny, I know. But, it's my blog. I can be corny if I want to! HAHA!

Later, my father asked his aunt for a hard copy of this picture and a few other odds and ends. She sent them and here it is in glorious black and white. It's not really an epic story or anything. But, it is fun.

Vincenzo

The more pictures of family I get, the more you can put faces to the names and dates in your favorite genealogical software. It's like that line goes in the movie, Coco. "They aren't just old pictures. They're our family".  My great-aunt has many more and I'm sure I'll be getting a few here and there as time goes on. We'll see. For now I am very happy with what I have.

It's funny that I actually mentioned Coco in the above paragraph. I look at that picture of the Ferraiolo family and I think of that movie. Sure they are Italian and not Mexican. But, the sentiment is still there. It's a great family photo and it's probably one of the best ones I have. 

Photographs help bring people who have been long gone to life and I'm fortunate to have a ton of old photos. Do I want more? You bet I do. I hope I get a chance to see them. For now, I am happy with what I have and I thank my great-aunt and my cousin for sending that picture of Marco and co to us. 

Side note: I did try and colorize the picture on Myheritage. It....didn't look too good. Vincenzo's hair was light. But, it wasn't blond!!! Sigh. Ah, well. It's a fun gimmick. Here's hoping I see more pictures soon!

See ya next time!