* LOCAL/FAMILY HISTORY DEPT. *  DONNELLSON PUBLIC LIBRARY *  500 PARK AVE. *  DONNELLSON, IA *  52625

 

Old Photographs
 

 

If you own a tintype of a great grandfather who served in the Civil War, you have a treasure.  Photography was expensive and not everyone could afford to have a likeness
of their loved ones.
 

Tintypes were produced in the USA from 1856 and became popular from the 1860s.  They remained popular into the 1900s and as late as the 1920s. Tintypes in the USA were usually of a decent size and big enough to see good detail.

 

                                            

~Tintype photos donated to the Genealogy Department by Inez Koch

 

A cousin sent me a large oval picture of my great grandparents – it is not a photograph but a portrait done in colored chalk by a traveling artist who probably

went to the home and created it for them.  It is one of my most precious possessions.  Great Grandma died in 1865 and it was purchased at a sale by someone who
knew the family.  It is an heirloom which will be passed down to my children.

 

Years ago people did not buy a lot of pictures since there were expensive and only given to relatives or special people.  When Jack and Eileen Clemons found the picture
of the two little girls in the Schock family pictures they knew these children were special to his grandparents.  When he realized they were the neighbor’s children and had lived next door, he was able to identify them, as noted in the January newsletter.

 

Do not destroy old pictures.  I know a lady who gave hers away and now she is interested in her family history.  The Genealogy Department accepts pictures and will place them in sleeves stating that they came from you or your family.  Since so many of these families are intermarried, someone will be able to identify them.  Several times we have given pictures to people who were thrilled to receive them.


  ~ Written and submitted by Erma DeRosear


 

 

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