Welcome to The Briercliffe Society Forum

Since these discussions always seem to stir up a good amount of argument and differences of opinion, here's the latest Bray archival photo that I'm casting forth amongst you...

The lady on the far left of the collage is, I am told, Florence Bray (my great Aunt). The photo was taken in Summer 1936 at the wedding photo shown below, when she was 38. Now, back in Spring 1926, Florence had had a daughter, Florence Emma, and in late 1927, another daughter - Joan. A photo of them is shown on the right. There's pretty much two years between them, so let's assume they're nine and seven, which would place this in about 1935 (unless anyone would like to differ?)

Now, I can certainly spot some similarities of Florence in her two children, but...what about the man seated by her side at the wedding? You can see their location amongst the other revellers below, but could this man be their Dad? Dad was the 40 year old (in 1936) William Charnock who died in 1944 (hence no-one remembers what he looked like. No other photos survive).

Do members of the board think that the man pictured could be the girls' father...?

PS: I seem to now have finally squeezed the last bits of truth from the wedding photo. I'm sure you're all sick of the sight of it by now!!

Stephen

Hi Stephen, I would say he is definitely their father, if you look at his mouth and that of the girl on the right, and also the eyes when I look at it again-----definitely.

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Gloria

I'd be dangerous with a brain.

I think the same as Gloria. There is definitely a resemblance in the smiles of the girl on the right and the man. The older girl's smile strongly resembles that of her mother.

My parents were married in September 1936. I wish I had a group photo like this.

Joan

Gloria and Joan,

Many thanks for your contributions. I do agree about the mouth. I'm very surprised at Florence's mouth, though. Looks nothing like that of either her parents or any of her other Bray siblings!

Oh, and Joan - if you're looking for family photos, don't just try the obvious places. I've had some amazing hauls this year by investigating the "in-law" line of various blood Uncles and Aunts. For instance, I hadn't got a picture of Great Uncle Frank Bray. So I researched his wife's family line and came across his wife's brother, Eric. I bunged Eric's details into Genes Reunited and came across Eric's wife's sister's grand-daughter. Who was able to put me in touch with the family of Frank's wife's own brother's daughter, and from there she able to share photos of Uncle Frank. Took me a good month or two of research to dig that far, but it certainly was worth it!

For what it's worth, I don't have a wedding photo of my Grandparents Bray, and they were married in 1940.

Stephen

I agree on those photo's too. Up until last year I only ever had one photo of my maternal grandmother which was my late Mothers, I have been in correspondence for some time with a cousin of my Mothers who lives in York, and I happened to mention doing my ancestry and she told me she had photo's of my maternal Grandmother and my maternal Great Grandmother. When she sent them to me I was totally overwhelmed to see their faces smiling at me from the photograph, my Gran was older in these photo's than she was in the one I had, and to see her Mother with her as well blew me away. I treasure these photo's because I never dreamt that I would look upon their faces. How glad I was that I mentioned my search to my relative, or these photo's could have been lost to me forever could'nt they.


Stephanie.

Well, you all seem to have reached very similar conclusions, which is very pleasing to me! I agree with you all - now that you've pointed it out - about the similarities between the 'father' and daughter #2. The evidence is fairly compelling!

Many thanks to anyone who chipped in with their opinions!