Welcome to our Historical Family Photos page. We are happy to be able to share these images with you, in this unique 21st century style.
Like many North Americans, it has taken only two or three generations for us to loose all contact with the relatives still living in the countries our grandparents and great-grandparents originally come from. There are only a few photographs here that we were able to identify with out help. The majority are our Mysterious Unknown Photographs.
There's a story behind our having these photos. You'll notice that many are in very poor shape, with a lot of water spots and some deterioration. The photos are currently the property of Julie Lommerse, who in 1994, was helping her mother Ira clean out old boxes Peter (Petrus G.W.A.) had kept around for years, and were now headed for the garbage. She was in the right place at the right time to rescue a package with more than a dozen or so very old, very battered photos in it.
This find left us very excited, and we started a search to discover the names of as many of the photos as we could. Julie decided to make contact with her father's cousin in the Netherlands for help. Many thanks go to our cousin Leo (Leenhert) Lommerse of Arnhem for his assistance. Julie had sent photocopies to Leo, and he was able to identify a number of them, including his own parents and a charming photo of himself and his brother Bep as small children.
But many others remain a mystery. Since we assume these photos originally belonged to Peter's parents, Petrus G.W. Lommerse and Catharina Lommerse-Snoek, they could very well be images of the Snoek family, as well as the Lommerse clan.
In our role as detectives, we have included the photographer's cardboard backing that the photos are mounted on. This tells us what city the picture was taken in, and sometimes the date the photo was taken. Often, if the backing was identical to that of another photo, we can be led to assume the photos may have been taken at the same time, giving us a lead as to who may have been together as a couple, or members of the same family having their portaits done at the same time.
December, 2000.
We wish to thank Mia de Groot for correcting a case of mistaken identity, and placing her
grandmother's photo where it belongs.
If you recognize anyone or have a copy of any of these pictures in your own family photo album, please let us know,
and we'll
be able to confirm who they are at last.
Ian and Gloria Lommerse.
If you are interested in the Lommerse family tree, the book can be purchased from A.W.M. Nieuwenhuizen-Fransen. She has compiled a Lommerse family tree dating back to 1570. There is a version in English as well as in Dutch.
One last suggestion. If you have piles of family snapshots at home, please take the time to write a name and date on the backs of them. You could be saving your great-grandchildren a lot of aggravation 100 years from now.