Showing posts with label Scotland. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Scotland. Show all posts

Wednesday, May 7, 2008

Help Me Identify These People


Here is another photo from the Scotland photo album of my grandfather's that I cannot identify. My grandfather is the only guy in the picture. I recognise the woman on the lower left, I know I've seen a photo of her before. If anyone knows who these people are, let me know! 


Sunday, February 3, 2008

Two More Photos from Scotland

This is a photo of my great grandparents (Shirreffs), I think, at some waterfall in Scotland.

And one below of my grandpa Stan with my great-grandmother (left) coming down from the top of the rocks. Unfortunately, these photos were taken from pretty far away. I wish they had a good zoom lens back then. 

Monday, January 28, 2008

Can you identify these people?


As I mentioned, I found a scrap book filled with old photos of my grandfather, Stan, and his family. It appears to be mostly from a trip that they took to Scotland sometime around the 1930s, but nothing is clearly marked. 


For all I know, the photos could be from one year or various trips. I'd like to see if anyone out there knows who the people in these photos are. 

I'll start with a group photo featuring my grandfather (on the right) as a young man all the way on the left side. There are two ladies and a man in the photo who I don't 
recongize. In the background are several young laughing children. I can't tell if it was taken in Scotland or not, but it looks like it could have been judging from the houses  background.

The photo on the left is a funny candid shot. The same people in the photo are the left are getting ready to pose, but someone is joking around and takes a photo while they are getting ready. One lady helps the other take off her apron in preparation for the photo while the man watches and laughs.  

This one is unique because you don't see too many candid shots like this. Everyone usually seems very formal and posed as in the second shot. This one gives you a better sense of who these people are, but not enough for me to identify them.

One guess is that it could be my great-grandmother's relatives in and around Aberdeen. I met a few of them during my first and last trip to Scotland when I graduated from college. I really enjoyed it there and can't wait to go back. Our relatives treated me and my friend very, very well. It was fun to see the old photos and learn more about the town where my family came from. 
I can't believe that I can't figure it out. Well, if you can help me out, send me an email!

Saturday, January 26, 2008

Dunottar Castle from Stan and Tom's trip to Aberdeen


Okay, so I figured out the name of the castle. It's the Dunnottar Castle.  One of Tom and Stan's pictures of it is above. (They took a bunch of them!)  If you click the link to the castle, you can see what it looks like today and its history.

Apparently there are some interesting shanannigans that go along with the visit to this Castle. Tom and Stan were apparently pretty wild. They were about 17 or 18 when they were on this trip together.



Stan and Tom Shirreffs in Scotland


I found a scrapbook containing pictures of Stan [my grandfather] and Tom Shirreffs [my great-uncle] around the time they were graduating from high school.  I think the pictures are from a trip they took to Scotland, but I'm not entirely sure.  I believe they visited Aberdeen together. Most of the pictures do not have any sort of information on the back of them and the cover is missing from the book. The book is filled with interesting photos, but some are faded or damaged.

There are pictures of the sea, a castle and of faces that I do not recognize. I would love to
 know more about who these people are. Over the next couple of weeks, I will post some photos. Maybe some member of the Shirreffs family out there will know who they are.  

In the meantime, I'm going to show you some of the photos. Here is a photo of Tom on a motorcycle wearing his le
tterman's sweater. On the back of the photo it says, "Me and my motorcycle. I like ours better." I'm assuming he's referring to American motorcycles? He looks kind of a tough guy in this picture! 

I think he earned his letterman's sweater from swimming. A clipping in the book from a newspaper shows both 

Stan and Tom as star athletes. Tom was a star swimmer and one of the mainstay of the one hundred yard freestyle, backstroke and fancy diving. Stan was a baseball star.

The second photo shows Tom and Stan in front of a large ship called "Rock All." My grandfather is clad in a suit and looking quite nice. Tom is wearing poofy pants  and argyle socks that seem suitable for golfing, but I'm not familiar with the styles of those days.

I hope you find these photos interesting. I will post more over the next few weeks.