Newspapers Help Identify an Old Family Photo

I was searching in GenealogyBank and quickly found the announcement of my grandparents’ wedding in 1922.

Marriage notice for Louise Richmond and Walter Huse, Boston Herald newspaper article 13 August 1922
Boston Herald (Boston, Massachusetts), 13 August 1922, page 27

I didn’t know that my grandmother’s cousin, Eloise M. Jordan, was the “maid of honor” – and who was Arthur M. Twaddle, the best man? I’ll have to find more information about him.

The wedding announcement said that after my grandparents’ honeymoon, “they will make their home at 31 Edwards Street” in Laconia, New Hampshire.

A quick Google search brings a photo of that house right up. I can use Google to see the front and side view of their home.

Photo: 31 Edwards Street in Laconia, New Hampshire. Credit: Google Street View.
Source: Google Street View

And there it is – the evidence I need to finally identify the location of an old family photograph.

The Google Street View gives me the clues I need to identify that photo’s location: the porch – the stairs – the column – the separated green latticework.

Now look closely at that old family photograph, an early photo of my mother: Eleanor Frances (Huse) Kemp.

Photo: Eleanor Frances (Huse) Kemp
Source: Thomas Jay Kemp, family photo

The matching porch behind her is pretty easy to see. Notice the latticework behind her shoulder and to her right – with the white panel separating the two sections. That also matches the Google Street View. The step count is the same. The screening is long gone and white railings have been added – but, I can reasonably conclude that this photo of her was taken while she was pushing the baby carriage from just outside the porch of her childhood home at 31 Edwards Street in Laconia, New Hampshire.

Clues – clues – clues.

This discovery began with the address I found in my grandparents’ 1922 wedding announcement in the newspaper.

Newspapers record the stories of every day of our ancestors’ lives. Each of them contains the essential clues that let us document our old family photographs, and fill in the fabric and details of their lives.

GenealogyBank’s Historical Newspaper Archives, with the priceless clues they contain, are your essential go-to source for your old family stories.

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