I'm actually not sure who these people are, although I'm fairly sure they're relatives from way back -- the photo, and its lovely folding case, was in the stuff we got from my mother's great-cousin Alice Abbott when she died in 1991.

My best guess is that these were her grandparents, which would make them my great-great grandparents, the Rev. Charles Peter Abbott and his wife Mary Smart -- they were the parents of my GrandpaAlan's mother, also named Alice Abbott. She was born in South Stukely, Quebec in 1865, but I suspect they'd recently emigrated there -- given the names, I'm guessing from England, but I really don't know much about them.

this is a daguerreotype -- the image is very silvery and mirror-like, and if the light hits at a different angle it looks like a negative -- I actually wasn't sure it'd scan without just reflecting the bright light back?

and updating this in 2018, with new family history information: Charles Abbott still lived in England in 1851, but in 1852 his father and brother died, and another brother died a year later, when he was only 18 -- this likely prompted his emigration? And he and Mary were married in 1859 in Quebec, where she was born, so i wonder whether this is a wedding portrait? He was 24, she was 20.

Tags:   reverend charles abbott great-great-grandfather mary smart great-great-grandmother portrait daguerreotype

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no date, photo taken in Montreal -- on the back is written: "Mrs. Charles P Abbott (Mary Smart), mother of Alice Abbott Godfrey, mother of Alan O. Godfrey, father of Alice Jean Godfrey" -- the last of whom is my mother.

she was married in 1859, hence guessing the date as sometime around 1860.

Tags:   mary smart abbott great-great grandmother portrait waterloo quebec

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this is the oldest photo in our family photo pile that actually has a date on it: on the back is written "Aunt Rachel Cousin Samuel, 1863" -- photo taken at the Lauder Brothers photography studio, 45 Lr. Sackville St., Dublin -- I believe this is Samuel John Oakes (and presumably his mother Rachel?), brother of my great-great-grandmother Mary Anne Oakes.

Mary Anne Oakes was born in 1823, i don't know the dates for any of her other siblings' births or deaths -- but that means her mother Rachel must have been born around 1800 or so?

and looking at historical maps of Dublin, what was Sackville St. is now O'Connell St -- Sackville St. lower would have been very close to the river.

Tags:   Samuel John Oakes great-great-uncle Rachel great-great-great-grandmother portrait Dublin Ireland

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no date, nothing on the back -- photographed in Waterloo, Quebec.

given the last name, this must be Mary Smart's mother, Jane Lang Smart -- who would be my great-great-great grandmother -- born 1809 in Paisley, Scotland, and died in 1868.

Tags:   Jane Lang Smart great-great-great grandmother portrait waterloo quebec

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no date, on the back is written very faintly, "my mother - P.G. Godfrey" -- so this is my great-great grandmother Mary Anne Oakes Godfrey, born in 1823, died in 1899 in Winooski, VT. she had TWELVE children! including my great-grandfather Peter George Godfrey.

Tags:   mary anne oakes godfrey great-great grandmother portrait

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