Redwood Retro

"We are tied to the ocean. And when we go back to the sea, whether it is to sail or to watch - we are going back from whence we came." -  John F. Kennedy Random slides of beaches and pools from the sixties. Unknown locations

I have been having so much fun turning all my family history into a series of blogs. I find it a much easier and more interactive way to share my research. I love that I can add a post and share something exciting that I have found much faster than editing a website. I can post a photo in real time from an old cemetery and get reaction or questions about the post right away, something I couldn't do with a traditional website. I do plan to add a little more creativity to my blogs. I think I play more with the layout and features than I actually post at the moment. The amount of photos and records I have to scan are unreal and I want to make sure the layout is easy to navigate to find everything. Google Patents I have added a post on my Blakely blog about my great grandfathers inventions . I knew about the inventions from a newspaper story but I didn't know that my grandfathers drawings and patents existed on Google Patents. I found the link during a random name search

I am in the process of scanning and retouching all of my war photos and keepsakes to make into a slideshow for various family members. So many family members served and my goal to to tell the story of every one of them. The person I am drawn to the most is a relative named Bill Blakely. His mom (my gr aunt) was a single mother during WWII and it was just the two of them. He was killed in Germany in 1941. I have a ton of his pictures and clippings about him but have no one to pass them on to. He had no children or siblings and anyone who knew him personally is long gone. Each remembrance day it is Bill that I honor and pay tribute to, just to keep his memory alive. I am trying to learn more about who he was as a person but I do not have much to go on other than a box of photos.

Added a new page this week of wartime advertisements from Canada . The ones I have added so far are all WWII and are from Canadian newspapers. I have also started scanning election and political ads and hope to have a page up soon.

I have started to update my page on Canadian Vintage advertising.  Most of these are from Ontario newspapers that I have collected over the years.