Another group of photos coming from the old Cumberland County photo album is this family group from Reading in Berks County. Unlike many of these old pictures, at least this group has a few clues to help us out. In the album itself, the parents’ pictures appeared next to each other and appeared to be labeled as E.J. Smith and Nan Smith. The baby’s picture is identified on the back as Bessie Smith, 11 months old, with a date of  January 1870.

The clues connected to little Bessie haven’t been enough yet for me to locate this little group yet, though. Part of the problem is that the names tagged to these pictures by my ancestor are more like nicknames than proper names – Bessie might be an Elizabeth, Nan might be a Nancy, and E. J. could be all sorts of things. Add to that a surname of Smith and this could be a lengthy search!