'THE MACLEAY Valley's Most Wanted' Project, or getting names to faces in the Angus McNeil photographic collection, has been underway now for 12 months.
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Ellen Brown from the Kempsey Museum has been getting groups of Identification Sheets out to older members of the community.
One of the glass plate negatives revealed a long sought after family treasure for two local sisters. Pat Radcliffe and Shirley Putland had been being searching the Angus McNeil Collection for the past 30 years (ever since the McNeil photos have been on view for the public) hoping that the photo of the four Constable sisters survived among the 30,000 plate glass negatives.
Both Pat and Shirley had memories of two special family photos that sat on their parents' side board. One was of the four Constable sisters aged between three to seven years of age. The other was of their parents' wedding photo.
The precious photos were swept away and destroyed in the 1949 floods. These photos were the only copies in existence and appeared lost forever.
The women had searched the McNeil Collection when it was available for public viewing, hoping for the survival of the special images after 71 years.
They were disappointed ... until Ellen delivered a catalogue sheet a few weeks ago with the precious two photos embedded.
Now the four little faces have names and will be preserved for future generations to view and discover.
Pat saw the offer to view Angus McNeil photographs in their own home and thought it would be worth having another search. Now that the whole collection is indexed on computer it takes only a few seconds to punch in a surname and be able to view 'all' of the photos associated with a particular surname.
Even if you have viewed photos with your family name before, Ellen and the writer of this column ask that people come and do a search of connected family surnames again.
If getting out and about is a bit difficult, please ring Ellen or the Museum and Ellen will search surnames connected to you and bring Identification sheets to your home for you to view.
If you have parents or grandparents who were born and bred on the Macleay, have a talk with them about spending a little time viewing these remarkable photo collections.
Even if an elderly family member lives away from the Macleay area, we can have the sheets posted to them.
If you have taken an interest in family history and have viewed many old family photos from various family members, again ... please come and do a search of your connected family names.
We also have approximately 8000 photos that have 'no surname hints' and these can also be quickly searched by typing in 'unidentified' in the subject line.
It takes approximately one hour to view 2000 photos. But you can just jot down the number of the photograph you are up to and the next time you visit repeat the unidentified search and then punch in the number you were at and continue with your search of the unknown photographs.
Simply contact the Museum on 6562-7572 or email mrhs5@bigpond.com for further information.
