Tracing Your Ancestors Through Family Photographs by Jayne Shrimpton

Author:Jayne Shrimpton
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Bisac Code 1: HBGT; REF013000; REFERENCE / Genealogy & Heraldry
ISBN: 9781473831827
Publisher: Pen and Sword
Published: 2014-01-08T16:00:00+00:00

78. Possible wedding anniversary portrait, early 1900s. Photographs of older couples often occur in family picture collections and in many cases the occasion was a landmark twenty-fifth, thirtieth, fortieth or even fiftieth wedding anniversary.

Wedding Anniversary

Since at least the Middle Ages, milestone twenty-fifth (silver) and fiftieth (golden) wedding anniversaries have been observed, but it was not until the Victorian era that the ritual and celebration surrounding the ‘anniversary wedding’, as it was then called, were redefined and popularised throughout Western society. Sources of information concerning the celebration of wedding anniversaries vary in their details, but collectively they suggest that by the turn of the twentieth century around nine principal wedding anniversaries were officially recognised: first, fifth, tenth, fifteenth, twentieth, twenty-fifth, fiftieth, sixtieth and seventieth. Photographic evidence certainly supports a growing trend towards celebration of several key anniversaries by the time of our late-Victorian and Edwardian ancestors and suggests that some couples may have formally commemorated every fifth wedding anniversary. Sometimes photographs marking landmark anniversaries are identified, but in many cases the occasion may not be immediately obvious and requires a firm date range for the image, as well as a degree of personal judgement. Sometimes the anniversary couple pose on their own in the studio or perhaps at home in the garden, one person usually standing while their spouse is seated (Fig. 78): in other images they are seated, surrounded by their children and any grandchildren, making the occasion more of a family celebration.

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