Unique Wedding “Portraits”

 I have an unusual set of “portraits” of my 2^nd great-grandparents done for their wedding in 1851.

On one wall of our living room are photos taken of the brides and grooms from five generations of Shepheard men, from my great-grandfather, James, to my son, also James. In between are my grandfather, father and me. These are all what we would call “normal” wedding pictures, all taken in studios by professional photographers.

But for my 2^nd great-grandparents, the portraits are actually black paper cut-outs, glued down on a background with some pencil sketches, and now yellowed with age.

I am not sure how the originals were mounted. My sister had them for many years and gave them to me as a Christmas present. Along with the cut-outs was a description of them:

Everyone has seen these types of cut-outs before. Many show silhouettes of people and family scenes like these. Some are very intricate works of art. Just do an Internet search for Black and white paper cutting art to see some real masterpieces.

These are very special to me because they apparently represent two of my direct ancestors and were done before photography really caught on. If we can believe that the artist did a good representation of the people, then perhaps we can get a glimpse of what they looked like in real life.

I have many wedding photos in my family albums. The oldest goes back to 1877, a picture of a great-granduncle and his new wife on their wedding day. In my direct line, the oldest is one of those that hangs on my wall – my great-grandparents, James & Mary Elizabeth (Pearson) Shepheard, taken on 17 June 1890. The cut-outs are of her parents.

The oldest photo I have is of my great-grandfather’s mother, Mary Crispin (Carpenter) Shepheard. I believe it was taken about 1875.

All my old family photos are prized possessions, but these cut-outs are unique and irreplaceable. They have a special spot all to themselves.

Bridal Wreath: A book for the bride

 In some ways, I am like my mother. I keep stuff.

In a post published here on 29 July 2014 (My Mother’s Scrapbook), I wrote about a scrapbook my mother assembled as part of a project she did for a course at Normal School in 1936. It is an amazing thing to have in my memorabilia, mainly because it was something she personally created. She kept it until her death in 1974. And now I am keeping it.

I also wrote about My Parents’ Wedding Anniversary (7 October 2014). One of my current projects is to identify all the people that appear in the group photo taken at their reception. So far, I have put names to about 2/3 of the guests in the picture.

Mom assembled another book as well. This one is The Bridal Wreath, a book for the bride. It contains cards, notes and photos from friends and relatives that she received at bridal showers and that both she and Dad got with wedding presents.

The basic book cost $0.50 and according to instructions that came with it, was available “at your jewelers or free with the purchase of a Bridal Wreath Engagement or Wedding Ring.” I don’t know which acquisition method she chose to get it.

The book was formatted with pages for Prelude (events that happened before the wedding), Showers and Entertainments, My Trousseau, The Wedding, The Reception, The Bridal Party, The Guests, The Gifts, Newspaper Clippings, The Bridal Bouquet, Wedding Anniversaries (a list of future occasions) and a two-page summary of Questions of Wedding Etiquette (in case a new couple did not know all the rules when organizing their wedding).

The book lists all the people that attended the showers and the wedding reception., along with an itemized list of the gifts they gave the new couple. Mom included some photos taken at the showers.

There are newspaper clippings concerning the bride. There is even a sprig remaining from the bouquet she carried.

Mom filled in many of the blanks for names and dates. For instance, we know she received her engagement ring on 7 April 1939 as she wrote that date in the spot dedicated to that event.

Some pages she did not use as intended but glued in photos and cards they received instead. Each card was included in the envelope it came in and the envelopes glued to the pages of the book so they would not get lost. Cards could then be taken out and looked at intact.

Napkins used at the showers and reception are also attached. One she kept was signed by (I think all) the participants.

The book is a wonderful collection of memories of my parents that we all can now enjoy, written in mother’s own hand. And a tangible look into an important event in our family’s history.

World of Webinars

The genealogical world is awash in webinars!

As you will see to the right of this post, I have joined the fray as well. I have an upcoming presentation for the 2020 Conference of the Virtual Genealogical Association in November. I gave a talk to the VGA membership last year, but unfortunately, I missed their deadline to offer talks for 2021.

I have two recorded presentations with Legacy Family Tree Webinars and have proposed other offerings for next year. LFTW have been going for 10 years now and have 1,365 presentations in their library, 333 of them free to view. They are organized in over 20 categories. New talks are added every month to LFTW.

I have two talks in the Family Tree (UK) video library. There are 47 individual recordings available to the magazine’s subscribers, again with more being added frequently. Many of the presentations were supposed to have been given live at a conference to be held last spring in London, England, but Covid-19 put a stop to that event.

I will also be recording one of my favourites for the Family History Down Under conference in March 2021.

Many, if not most family history societies and national genealogical organizations have reverted to virtual presentations due to lockdowns imposed by, again, limitations on gatherings as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic. There are way too many to list here.

RootsTech will go all online in 2021, and free, with their RootsTech Connect conference.  The Family History Federation is organizing an event in November call the FHF Really Useful Family History Show. This one is very inexpensive.

There are continuing lists of webinars, seminars, podcasts, conferences and other online family history gatherings available at Conference Keepers (also organized by country), Cyndi’s List, Eastman’s Online Genealogy Newsletter.

Commercial and other data providers now have online educational opportunities on their webpages, Facebook pages or YouTube: MyHeritage, Ancestry, FindMyPast, TheGenealogist, FamilySearch.

Don’t forget libraries, archives and museums for live and recorded events: The National Archives (UK), National Archives (US), Library and Archives Canada.

Having access to all these online presentations is not a bad thing although the biggest problems are finding the time and choosing which ones to watch. The best way to find out what talks are upcoming and what be of interest or value is to subscribe to various email lists and newslettersn from societies (local and national), genealogical news providers, online summary keepers, commercial database providers, blogs, etc., including all of the ones I commented on above.

And I have not even mentioned the multitude of courses available online!