May Black and her feathered friends (Fearless Females)

In honour of National Women’s History Month (http://www.nwhp.org/whm/history.php), Lisa Alzo of The Accidental Genealogist blog (http://www.theaccidentalgenealogist.com/) presents Fearless Females: 31 Blogging Prompts to Celebrate Women’s History Month.

I am not going to attempt to respond to all of the topics, and I am already too late to attempt to post them on the appropriate days, but I thought they were such a great set of blogging prompts that I wanted to participate.

March 2 — Post a photo of one of your female ancestors. Who is in the photo? When was it taken? Why did you select this photo?

This is May Black (1881-1951), my great-grandmother. I don’t know where or when the picture was taken, but no doubt the hairstyle and clothing reveal a lot to someone who knows about such things. Neither do I know if the cockatoos and galah were hers or if they belonged to someone else.

The picture is rather scratched, but beyond the scratches the image is quite clear.

What I like about this photo, and the reason that I posted it, is that… look! She’s posing with cockatoos and a galah! So many of the photos from generations back are stiff and formal but I think that this one has a warmth and sense of humour about it.