If not cousin Luther Abrahamson than who is this handsome young man?

 The most rewarding part of this blog for me is the chance to find additional cousins, cousins I never even knew I had! Through this blog I was contacted by a third cousin, the grand daughter of Luther Abrahamson. Luther was a cousin of my grandmother Lydia. Lydia and her sisters came to Illinois. Luther's branch settled in Connecticut. "That is not my grandfather", my new found cousin has voiced and she should know, right? I know that I can readily recognize even early young photos of my own grandparents. So then who IS this handsome young man? A photo saved for three generations most likely is a relation. Any thoughts?

Open to suggestions,

Mystery Young Men? Do you recognize Us?

I love to wander through old antique shops, boutiques, and second-hand stores. You never know what you will find. One thing that always disturbs me. There is always a large box or pile of beautiful old family photos. Weddings, Family groups, babies....all who were loved and photographed by their loved ones for a remembrance of them.  Those photos were most likely once displayed with great pride in the family home. Here they are abandoned because no one now alive can identify who these people, once cherished, were.

I have posted this photo before. A photo found among family photos and memorabilia. Two young handsome men that look to be no more than older teens or early twenties. Can you identify them or do they resemble a family member of ours? Please contact me.

DEAD FRED is a genealogy website. They host these abandoned photos hoping to find a home with current family. I posted this photo on that site. I love that site and in fact found there a photo of my great grandfathers' cousin. You never know what you will find. Check out the site for yourself.

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DEAD FRED Genealogy Photo Archive - Search, Preserve. Record, Remember

And please please take a bit of time to write your name and date on the back of that great photo of you with your prize catch (and all the others too). Your great great granddaughter/son will thank you.

2003-Otto Feick-Granite Lake, Ontario,Canada

Unidentified Family Member?

This photo came from family in Sweden (Abrahamson line) unidentified. A handsome fellow for sure, the photographer was Swedish but I can't say that his look is at all familiar to me or resembles anyone I would have known or seen a photo of previously.  Ostra Halland is in the province of Halland which is on the Western coast of Sweden if that is any help? Klingwall was a prominent photographer born 1858. That and the gentlemans dress seem to indicate the timeframe to be turn of the century? Any thoughts or ideas?

Friday's Faces from the Past - Mystery Solved?

This photo was in the possession of one of the American Abrahamson cousins. Unidentified.

Last week I was researching the three youngest boys of  Johana Lena Karlsdotter (my great grandmother Anna Karolina's sister) and Linus Andersson. Today I looked again at the photo of the three unidentified men and I thought; could these three be the three Anderson sons who immigrated to Chicago together, never married and lived together in Chicago? One face seemed eerily familiar. I looked at another Abrahamsson family photo. The fishing photo. On my computer I blew up two unidentified men in that photo.

Whoa............I'm no Sherlock Holmes but in my opinion these are the same guys.

The light blond hair even as adults, the square face, the size and shape of the ears, the elongated nose, slight clef in chin, same width of mouth with prominent philtrum

Oh yeah, I would put money on it that these are the guys and just by guessing who is oldest to youngest?

Well, what do you think?

free clipart from http://phillipmartin.info/

Good for you Dead Fred!

Something that always made me sad and a little angry too. Have you ever cruised through an antique shop and stopped to thumb through a large box of photos? Beautiful old vintage photos? Photos of people who were loved and wanted to be remembered by those that loved them? Photos that no one took the time to identify by name, date or place? Photos of family members now lost forever? Photos that now ended up in that antique shop? Unknown and uncared for?



Good for you Dead Fred! DEAD FRED is a website that takes in these  orphaned photos hoping against hope a family member will someday claim them. And it does happen. Happened to me in fact. Go on the site and search on a name, place etc. and just maybe you will find an ancestor!
I googled "Abrahamson" and up popped a photo found in a photo album of an elderly now deceased lady from Chicago who saved a picture of her pastor at the Salem Lutheran Church. I now had a photo of Dr. Rev. Laurentius Gustav Abrahamson. He was great grandfather Albins cousin who had emigrated from Sweden in 1853 as a young boy, graduated from Augustana College and became a quite influential person in the Illinois Swedish Immigrant community. He was Ruth Soderstroms contact mentioned on her Ellis Island manifest and he married my grandparents in Rock Island in 1911. He's a pretty interesting fellow, one day I will devote a post just to him.



Dr. Rev. L.G. Abrahamson

My long winded point is this. Please, please, take the time to identify your families important photos. Those hundreds of photos on your cell phone or in your computer? Just in my time, in additional to the traditional prints, I have 8mm movies, slides, 3D photos, VHS cassettes, video cassettes, floppy discs, CD's, DVD's, cell phone and I-pad photos. They all have a limited shelf life. Did you know that the average DVD degrades in 5-7 years? Keep up with current technology, better yet, print them out and label them with name place and date. Someday your great grandchild may get a big kick out of that photo of you proudly polishing your '69 Mustang wearing your bell bottoms and tye-dyed T-shirt!

I visited a cousin this week who had some orphan photos his mom had saved, because his grandma had saved them. But...who are these people? No one ever wrote down their name. Take a look and let me know if you can identify any of these folks who posed so proudly for their family and friends. They were family and friends of our ancestors.

See the bottom of this blog for contact information if you can add a name to these old friends/family.

Don't forget to check out my buddy Dead Fred. Maybe you will be lucky also.

click on► Dead Fred - Genealogy Photo Archive

- Thanks! cousin, Ranae

(clicking on photos will enlarge them for easier viewing)