I'm writing about old transport and an amazing discovery for Sepia Saturday 249. Please see click here for more amazing Sepia Saturday stories.
The following photo I just obtained a couple of hours ago from V. Baker who is currently one of three people who is helping me with some amazing genealogical discoveries. She sent me this postcard of the Ohoka Store with store transport sitting outside ready to deliver the groceries. The postcard was sent probably between 1913 and about 1919 from Mary Lord nee Meng to her friend Lizzie Baker (Clara Elizabeth Baker nee Harris). Mary was my great great grandmother.
There was a lovely message on the back too:
This postcard is interesting because of the relationship to me but also because of the historic nature of the photo. The Ohoka general store no longer exists. It was in the small town at a time when travelling long distances into Christchurch was not a daily occurance. The local store was much needed, as were the other tradesmen in the Ohoka township. I had heard about this store but had never seen a photo of it before so it is exciting to share it here.
How did I come to receive this postcard? Well, a few day ago I was emailed by a lady looking for her Baker family in Ohoka and she had come across my blog. I am not related to the Baker family but I said I had some Baker photos, taken from about 1915 to the 1920s. I didn't know anything about these Bakers apart from the fact their names were Tom and Lizzie Baker. And I had no idea what Lizzie looked like as a young girl. This lady suggested that it may be Clara Elizabeth Harris and her husband Thomas Henry Baker. I then did some digging and found an amazing photo album online with photos of Lizzie (aka Clara Elizabeth). This album has three of my relations in it as well as photos of Clara Elizabeth Baker who fills my old album from the 1890s and earlier.
I found the same photos plus different ones. I managed to name so many of the photos now that it is a huge breakthrough. I have stared at these photos for twenty years, and in the last five years have really tried to do detective work, often without success.
The blog where the album is posted is an excellent one for photo buffs. You should all check it out. I'm blown away by it! Early New Zealand Photographers and their successors.
Then I got the email of V. Baker, a lovely lady who I have swapped information with and who sent me the postcard. Genealogy is an amazing hobby just for the great people you meet along the way!
So I can now confirm most of the photos and it is another mystery solved. Thank goodness for the Internet and other keen genealogists!
Clara Elizabeth Harris
Oh that is such a great thing to happen...for both of you now have so many more images to link to the ancestors in your families. Kudos to you!
ReplyDeleteHow wonderful to find links with photographs to share!
ReplyDeleteI love the postcard and you were really lucky to find all that information.
ReplyDeleteA great discovery and the photograph of Clara Elizabeth is a beauty.
ReplyDeleteSometimes things just seem to fall together. Some call it "coincidence" & there may be such a thing, perhaps? But I'm a strong believer in telepathy & I believe, in its many forms, it plays a large part in how so-called coincidence's occur.
ReplyDeleteI'm a believer too La Nightingail!
DeleteHow lovely to have the photographs and to learn a bit about the people more from the message on the photograph.
ReplyDeleteA lovely photo with the two different forms of transport. An exciting discovery for you.
ReplyDeleteThere is a lot of pure drudgery in genealogy, but these breakthrough moments when names and photos start flowing are absolutely exhilarating. Now onto the next challenge!
ReplyDeleteWhat a wonderful story. Where would we be without the internet in our search for the past? Lovely photos too.
ReplyDeleteVery interesting. I see that Ohaka is not a million miles from Kaiapoi, where a lot of my ancestors lived/
ReplyDeleteI just knew that people from 'down under' would have some marvellous horse drawn transport for us this week. Your post did not disappoint.
ReplyDeleteDon't you love what I believe is called synchronicity? And yes the internet helps too;)
ReplyDeleteAlex, I certainly believe in it. Yesterday I was taking photos of forget-me-nots and on the same day received in the mail some autographs from my great grandmother and her sister. One was about forget-me-nots. This is going to be another blog now!
DeleteI just find it so amazing how we can pull so much off the internet! I've been discovering things I wish I'd known when my grandmother was still alive!
ReplyDelete