As Time Goes By

This is rather interesting, I hope you will agree.  Recently The Daily Telegraph has been publishing letters from people who, by one degree of separation, know people born a very long time ago – for example, a man in his seventies who can remember, as a young child, being told by his grandfather that when he was a child he met a man born in 1799,  and similar.  Inspired by this, they also asked if anyone could help them find the oldest person in the oldest photograph and this may well be the record.  It’s a photograph of a shoemaker from Lincolnshire called Robert Morvison.  The picture was taken in 1857, when he was  82 years old.  That means we have a photo of a man born in 1775: before the USA came into existence, before the age of Napoleon, 44 years before the future Queen Victoria was even born.  Photos of people born even earlier may possibly be in existence – please check your attics!
.
.
.
.
.
.

Comments

[J]

I have a similar photo...not quite as old, I don't think. It's one of my great great (etc) grandmothers, and she was born during the American revolution, not before. She's a bit formidable looking, though.

[MissMeliss]

I think my aunt is hoarding all of my family's old photos, but I vaguely remember a photo done in sepia on that almost-cardboard paper of my great, great, great grandmother in Italy. She was beautiful. It wasn't particularly old, I don't think, but it still carried the weight of personal history.

P.S. I haven't visited your blog in a long time. It's good to read your words again.

[Tina]

this is fascinating nick. i really love stuff like this

[Tina in Houston]

Very interesting and cool stuff. I can only go back to the very early 20th century on my family.