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Published: Sunday, 17 March 2024 at 10:00 AM


Who Do You Think You Are? Magazine reader Val Thorley from Aberforth, West Wales shares her family photographs.


This is the wedding of my paternal aunt Nancy Packe to Albert William Oliver in Leicester. I’m on the far right, aged two, with Mum, Dad, Granny, Grandad and brother Roger.

Black and white photograph of a man, a woman and a little girl in Victorian dress
Here is my paternal great grand aunt Elizabeth Philpotts (née Smithies) with her husband William and their daughter Nellie

Black and white photograph of a man wearing a suit and a woman wearing a hat with a veil posing for their wedding

My mother Vera May Steeples married my father Bernard Packe at Sheffield Register Office during the Second World War

Black and white photograph showing two younger women, a little boy and an older woman sitting in a row
This photo shows (left to right) my mother, Roger, my aunt Nancy and Granny Packe

Black and white photograph showing a young woman in Edwardian dress arm-in-arm with two older women and walking along a beach
Elizabeth, her daughter-in-law Louisa and Louisa’s mother Hannah Brearley

Black and white photograph of a young woman in Edwardian dress wearing spectacles and holding a baby
My father is sitting on his mother Annie Packe’s knee in 1912

Black and white photograph of a man, a woman and a little boy riding a tandem
This photo shows Mum, Dad and Roger out on a bicycle

Black and white photograph of a man in First World War army uniform, a woman and a little boy in a sailor suit
Here are my grandmother Annie’s second cousin Ethel Maud Farniss (née Smithies), her husband Lawrence and their son Alfred in 1918 – Lawrence was an acting corporal in the Royal Engineers

Sepia photograph of a young woman
My paternal great aunt Louise Timms was born in Northampton in 1867

Sepia portrait photograph of a young man
Louise’s son Reginald was born in 1899 in Castlethorpe

Black and white photograph of a group of children in old-fashioned clothing sitting on the beach
This photo from c1922 shows Dad (far right) playing with friends