Of over
10,000 family historical pictures in my collection, these are
the ones I have so far identified as belonging to the families of my
Grandparents Flinn: William Flinn [1874-1958] and his wife Ethel
(Hettie) Emily Gardner [1885-1969]. There are 804 pictures here from
1890 to 1980 with the majority being from 1920 to 1960. This is only a
rough compilation, is incomplete,
and no effort has been made to edit them, as yet. There are still many
pictures not yet scanned and some others have not yet been added to
this compilation. A rough guess is that this represents but 50% of all
pictures I have related to this family. I have decided to start adding
pictures to my web site now, even though not complete, to enable others
to input what they know. If I waited until my work was "complete" this
phase of the project would never get done! Although I quickly tried to
cull duplicates, there are some duplicates: usually where there were
both prints and negatives. Of my several family branches, this branch has the smallest number of pictures and, thus, the easiest and fastest to prepare. At this time, I am working on two other branches: LOW and TANNER. The TANNER branch, which includes sub-branches of REED and AIRD will probably be the largest with over 5000 pictures. To complete these projects within a lifetime, I have had to abandon my hope of working towards perfection. Many people and places are unidentified. The main purpose of this is to make them available so that others who knew the people, places, and events can provide further information and eventually this can be updated and better organised. Details wanted can be classified as "who, what, when, where, and why." This compilation does little more than attempt to identify people and in a few cases, places. If you can provide additional information, please contact me at jimlow@applewriter.com with details. Refer to the picture titles. Most pictures did not have dates on them. I have tried to estimate dates and have assigned a year to every one. Where "c" appears following the year, that means it's a guess. From experience, I have found that I have been able to estimate dates within a decade from the type of picture, from styles in pictures, and from identified people where I could estimate their approximate ages. For example, if a date is shown as "1930c" I feel confident that it was taken within ten years of that date. In fact, the largest number of pictures here are dated 1930c, as I regard that as an "epoch" where I had no real idea of date, but appeared to be in the 1925 to 1935 period. Where there is no "c" on the date, I feel confident it was taken in that year. Where a date is followed by a dash and another number, that is the year and month. Exact dates are shown as year-month-day in numeric format. These pictures are arranged very roughly in chronological order, based on my date estimates. Names always show only the maiden name of women, where known. I tried to be consistent, by giving first and/or commonly used name, with initials for other names. In the case of "Jr." and "Sr." I have arbitrarily assigned these as fixed, where the title changed over time as earlier generations died off. The "title" of each picture is arbitrary and meaningless as they were assigned as I found these pictures in various boxes and envelopes. Ones with just numbers are generally from prints in my collection where I just counted in sequence as I found them and mixed with a number of my families: the "FLINN/GARDNER" ones have been filter from the entire collection, thus not all numbers appear. Those that start with the title "AP_loan_" are from pictures loaned to me from my cousin Ann Paterson/Stokes and I am most grateful for access to her collection. Those starting with the letter "N" or with "neg" in the name are from scanned negatives. Some of the pictures from Ann include PATERSON pictures: those of her father James Paterson's family. Historical Notes on some people in this album: William James Gardner [1861-1898], my great-grandfather. Only one picture exists, identified as William J. Gardner. He was, at first, a gardener, then served as a seaman in the British Navy. He died at age 37. Born in Warwick and died in Birmingham, England. Harriet Drucilla Harris [1864-1934], my great-grandmother. A number of pictures are here and she is identified as Harriet D. Harris. She was married to William James Gardner. After she was widowed, she married Frederick Buckingham in 1900 in Aston, Warwick, England. Frederick became the stepfather of my grandmother and her siblings, and is my "step-great-grandfather." They moved to Brandon, Manitoba where they bought and ran a farm. Harriet died at Brandon at age 69 and her second husband died in Nanaimo, British Columbia in 1939 at age 81. He moved there after Harriet died, as he had siblings there. Harriet and Frederick had a son Oliver Buckingham [1900-1912] (half-brother of my grandmother) who was killed at age 11 in an elevator accident at Brandon (don't play with elevators!). There is only one picture of Oliver that can be positively identified and, unfortunately, is damaged so only half his face is visible. Frederick and Harriet also had twin girls who died at birth and were unnamed. Mary Ann Collins [1842-1912], my great-grandmother was born and died in Bethnal Green, London, age 69. There is only one poor quality picture of her. She was married to my great-grandfather William Flinn [1839-1901] but there is no picture of him. All of their children were born in Bethnal Green, London where they were raised. In the 19th century, Bethnal Green was a notorious slum and next to Whitechapel, where Jack the Ripper was plying his trade when my grandfather William Flinn was a teenager. William Flinn [1874-1958], my grandfather was born in Bethnal Green, London and died at Ottawa, Ontario at age 84. He served in the Queen's Own Cameron Highlanders of the British Imperial Army and was wounded at the Battle of Omdurman in 1898 in the Sudan, then fought in the Boer War in South Africa. He came to Canada in 1904, serving in the Canadian army during World War I and in the Corps of Commissionaires in World War II. In 1912 he married my grandmother Ethel ("Hettie") Emily Gardner [1885-1969] who is identified here as Ethel (Hettie) E. Gardner. Both died in Ottawa: she was also 84 at her death. My mother was Ethel Emily Flinn [1915-1980] identified as Ethel E. Flinn. She married my father James Reed Low [1916-1970], identified as J. Reed Low. Her siblings were Norah Helen Flinn [1913-1985] identified as Norah H. Flinn who married James Paterson [1906-1979], and William Omdurman Flinn [1914-1980] identified as William O. Flinn who married Edna May Lindfield who is identified as Edna M. Lindfield and still living. A number of other pictures are here, including one branch of my grandfather Flinn: some descendants of William Flinn's sister Maria Flinn: her daughter Florence A. Cawley and her daughter Muriel Fidget. Muriel was in Canada with her first husband "Mickey" Foot. They were later divorced and she returned to England. There are a number of pictures of the families of the siblings of my grandmother Ethel (Hettie) E. Gardner: Elizabeth (Bess) J. Gardner, Helen (Nell) L. Gardner, and John (Jack) R. Gardner. Bess and Nell both married the Treherne brothers. There are many unidentified friends of the family. The Claire family were very good life-time friends of my grandparents FLINN/GARDNER, and were regarded as part of our family. |