A couple of years ago, I spent hours at the State Library searching through old news papers on microfilm. I was looking for a particular photo from my family history, and I only had the memories of my 10-year-old self to rely on. I spent so much time at the Library, that the librarians were familiar with my search purpose, and often offered suggestions they hoped would be helpful.

In a significant moment in sparking my interest in family history, my father showed me an article in the Adelaide Advertiser. A photo of my grandfather and his brothers. Seven elderly gents all looking chipper. I was struck by the size of the family. As a girl with sisters, I immediately wanted to know if there had been any girls. The sisters had all died. I was intrigued by the size of my grandfather’s family and immediately recognised the fact that if Dad had that many uncles, then he must surely have a huge number of cousins! He told me there was to be a reunion of all the descendants of ‘Pop’s father’.
The reunion took place in a warm month, but not the height of summer. There was an estimated 500 people in attendance, and many photos taken on the day. I remember meeting my father’s uncles with a kind of awe. It was like discovering a whole bunch of new grandfathers. The respect and warmth my father held for them was evident.

Fast forward a few decades, and my interest in family history is renewed. I wanted to find that photo! So, based on the memories of my 10-year-old self, I spent hours at the State Library trawling through microfilmed newspapers in search of the article. I didn’t have much to go on. I remembered a full length photo of seven elderly gents seated in a garden. I had a photo taken of my family at the reunion where my brother was a babe not more than a year old. We were dressed in summer clothes, confirming warm weather. Based on my brother’s age I knew that I had to be about 10 when the photo was taken.

I spent months trawling through past editions of the Advertiser. I started in March 1973, and went on from there. I was going cross-eyed scanning old editions, sometimes getting distracted by events of the era. The Librarians were very helpful, and became familiar with my quest, offering suggestions to find my goal, and kept encouraging me.

My breakthrough finally came after I had met some descendants of my great grandfather’s brother, uncle of my grandfather. Those amazing women, older than I, had been collecting family history documents for many years, and were keen to connect and share information. There it was, in the large file they had collected, a copy of the article I sought! It looked nothing like the one I had in mind. The photo was from chest up, not full length, and the article I recalled was far briefer than I could have imagined. The date of the article stuck with me, it was May 1, 1973. I had begun searching in March of that year, but had such a strong image in my head that I had not been able to search effectively.

The day I returned to the library to download my own digital copy of the article, my favorite librarian was present. She had followed my progress and checked in with helpful suggestions regularly during my search. She understood my joy at achieving my goal.

The memory of my 10-year-old self had proved unreliable and misleading! The photo I was remembering was the one which family members had purchased from The Advertiser. That had been a full length version, and I had seen it more often than the one reproduced in the paper!

Memory, no matter how certain we are. can play tricks on us and be rather unreliable.

[1] ‘They are seven who total 512’, The Advertiser, Adelaide, 1 May 1973.