Friday, October 21, 2011

The Wedding Anniversary of Emilie and Adalbert Haf ~


Today, one-hundred and seventeen years ago,  Emilie Haf nee Schallhammer (1871-1944), married my maternal great-grandfather, Adalbert Haf (1868-1952) on the 21st of October, in 1894 in Pfronten, Ostallgau, Bayern, Germany. My grandfather, Adalbert Haf (1907-1968) was one of the 19 children, our Emilie and Adalbert gave birth to . . . several had passed away early on, and some of the boys had died in WWII. I have so little information on Emilie and some of the children. My beautiful mom (1933-2010) and I were just getting into the history of our Haf family and this portrait, before she passed. I am  researching and asking as many questions as I can with my only living Aunt in Germany, my uncle's wife.



Both passed before I was born so I never had the opportunity to get to know either great-grandparent. As far as I know, this is the only photo I have of, Oma Emilie.

Because many of my grandfather's siblings had passed or were in the military...not all are shown in this family portrait. The two framed photos sitting on the floor in front of my great aunt Fannie, and my great grandfather,  are my great-great grandparents, Mathias (1839-1902) and Franziska (nee Behringer) Haf (1838-1900)...the only portraits I know that exist of them.  I do not have all of the names of my ancestors in this photo.  There are names written on the back but a bit confusing as to who is who and for several, there is no name at all, so I am working on identifying each ancestor correctly (hopefully). The two adults sitting and to the right in the photo, are cousins of my great grandfather (sadly, no names).

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The Haf family portrait is very large and would not fit on my 8.5 x 11 Canon scanner, so I used my Flip-Pal Mobile Scanner and stitched the portrait together...because of my Flip-Pal, I am now able to scan and share several photos I have in my collection.



5 comments:

Sue McPeak said...

How wonderful to have a photo of so many family members in one sitting. I've never seen a group photo that displayed Older Portraits.

When I have a photo too large for my scanner, I take a photo of it with my camera and upload it to Windows 7 Live Photo Gallery. There I have multiple options for sizing and editing. I too have scanned in sections and pieced.

Best of luck with your photo detective work. I have some unidentified folks, too. I keep hoping for a clue....maybe one of these days!

Sue

Heather Kuhn Roelker said...

What a great portrait! I also love how they included the missing family members. That is a technique that is still relevant today. I'll have to remember that next time we sit for photos. I think it is pretty unique!

Gini said...

Thank you, Sue and Heather . . . had my great-grandparents not included the photos of those missing family members, I would have never known of those photos or what they looked like! I think I would like to see if those photos exist somewhere in the family . . . it really makes me wonder now where they could be . . . hmmm . . . I have some work to do!

Also, Heather, you have brought up a great point . . . include photos of missing members in our own photos . . . what a great idea! Sue, I have been contacting family members in Germany to see if I can get any information at all . . . not easy but I don't give up easy either! So glad you both stopped by.

Kathy, the Single-minded Offshoot said...

I just found your blog and the wealth of pictures you have shared so far. That is such a good idea. I have ancestors from Bavaria who came to Wisconsin in 1856 from Regen near the Czech border and have a family picture of them. The suggestions for scanning larger pictures are very good ones. As my mother (and probably her Bavarian ancestors) always said, "Two heads are better than one" when working on a problem.

Gini said...

Thank you, Kathy, glad you found me! I agree, "Two heads are always better than one" and especially in family history . . . family historian's and genealogists helping each other is so much better and more fun too. Several of my Haf ancestors settled in Wisconsin also . . . I am just starting to delve into that line. Thanks for stopping by, Kathy . . . Happy Holidays!