A worldwide family history success story

[goldie61]

Several years ago I did some work on a friend's family history here in New Zealand.
As with many settlers of European descent, his family lines traced back to Scotland, Ireland and England, with several of them in Devon and Cornwall.
One Cornish family were quite well off and had a very nice house. The house is still owned by a descendant of the family, and does bed and breakfast, so I was able to see on their website that there  were various large oil paintings of the family members hanging on the walls, many of them from the late 1700s. Having contacted the nice owners there, who were very interested to hear there were descendants in New Zealand, they sent me good photographs of my friend's ancestors, which I passed on to them.

Out of the blue this week I had a surprise email from the people at the house, to say that 2 paintings had come up for sale in an auction house in the town, and the auction was that day!
Luckily England is 13 hours behind New Zealand at the moment, so I contacted my friend right away with a link to the auction house.
The auction would have started at 9pm NZ time.
At 6am, (I was not awake, but saw the message later), my friend texted me to say they were now the proud owner of the paintings of his husband and wife Georgian ancestors.
That's pretty exciting stuff, especially in New Zealand where European history doesn't start until well into the 1800s.

I love it when all the stars align to create a happy ending! 

[mckha489]

How exciting.
Am just a bit jealous!

[goldie61]

How exciting.
Am just a bit jealous!

Me too!
I'm never going to find oil paintings of my lot!

[maddys52]

What a great outcome, well done!

[GR2]

Me too!
I'm never going to find oil paintings of my lot!

However, you can always make sure there is an oil painting of your good self for future generations to admire 

[goldie61]

Me too!
I'm never going to find oil paintings of my lot!

However, you can always make sure there is an oil painting of your good self for future generations to admire 

 

[andrewalston]

I'm never going to find oil paintings of my lot!

Me neither! Most of the places my lot lived have been demolished as slums. We reckon that if they were alive today, they would be borrowing off us. 

However someone I've been helping at out FHS has a gateway ancestor, and there is an image online of a painting of one of her direct ancestors from the early 17th century! Unfortunately it is in someone's private collection, so it's unlikely she will be able to view it in person.   

[Pheno]

My daughter and I paid a visit to Knole House in Sevenoaks and just prior to leaving went into the cafe for some refreshment and to use the facilities.

As we had bags etc with us we took it in turns whilst the other loitered.  On returning my daughter said to me to come and look at this.  On the wall of the cafe was a row of paintings which the owner of the manor had commissioned to keep a record of his workforce - long before photography.  Whilst browsing the wall she came across a reasonably familiar name and on looking it up found that it was an ancestor who had worked there for a number of years.

What are the chances of it either being displayed or her looking?

Pheno

[Familysearch]

My experience also goes back some years.

From our original family tree covering 1620 to 1800s, we knew that at least one person was an apothecary in  London.

My sister attended a conference at the apothecary's hall (on a totally unrelated subject) and mentioned in passing to one of the guild's staff that I was tracing our family tree,  She was directed to an oil painting in the main meeting room - of our ancestor!