What’s Grandpa Doing on Flickr?

The Time Machine

Last week, Flickr’s official blog spotlighted a dusty nook of the massive photo-sharing: Flickr Commons. Launched in 2008 with the Library of Congress, it’s an ever-evolving collection of more than 50 global public photography archives. Flickr developed the page to crowdsource information about these historical photos, which the site’s users have been more than happy to do.

The project soon became much more than a pursuit for amateur historians. “Coincidences happen on the Web,” says Flickr administrator Zack Sheppard. One Flickr user, for example, identified this race car driver, Bob Burman, as her great-great-grandfather. The photo was taken around 1910.

Here, we’ve compiled a few of the most compelling stories of lost ancestors and reunited families.

Library of Congress/Flickr.
The Coach: 1912-1915

Lily Smith, second from the left, was an English Channel swimmer. The dapper fellow on the left is Walter Brickett, a British Olympic swimming coach in 1908 and 1912. “Oh my gosh! How bizarre! Walter is my great-great grandfather,” writes Flickr user Patricia Snook in the comments. User Henry8362 notes that it’s a small world—he’s also related to Brickett. Snook urges Henry to email her. “My grandmother is very interested, and amazed that you can connect so easily online!” Snook writes.

Library of Congress/Flickr.
The Actress: 1910-1915

Brooklynite, suffragist, and cinema star Elizabeth Valentine was born in 1877. Flickr user Susan Jo Darling met Valentine shortly after her 90^th birthday, in 1967. Valentine had injured her hip, and Darling agreed to help take care of her at her home. Darling, 20 at the time, was mesmerized by Valentine’s tales of celebrities in Hollywood. She recalls watching the moon landing on a black and white television with the elderly film star. Valentine’s grandniece, Susanna Lamb, comments as well, saying she was pleased to learn about her relative from a stranger. “I was too young to get to know [Elizabeth] and living in another state, yet have always felt close to her great spirit.”

Library of Congress/Flickr.
The Teacher: date unknown

When Kathleen Crossley decided to emigrate with her family from England to North America for a better shot at attending a university, the Crossleys passed up a spot on the Titanic because they couldn’t get a cabin together. Instead, they traveled to Canada on a different boat, and Kathleen became a physics teacher at the University of Toronto. Later, she encouraged her great-nephew’s burgeoning interests in science, astronomy, and engineering with math games and puzzles. Today, he’s a distinguished engineer at IBM. “Clearly, she had an influence on me,” says Richard McDonald, the Flickr user who identified Crossley as his great-aunt.

Smithsonian Institution/Flickr.
The Swimmer: 1920s

Eva Morrison was a record-breaking distance swimmer in the 1920s—a skill she put to different use decades later when she took up saving sailors out at sea during nor’easters. Morrison, who lived atop a cliff in Maine, used to “put down what she was doing in the kitchen, whose window faced the sea, run down a rickety flight of stairs, and jump into the churning water to save some 200-lb guy thirty years her junior!” explains her grand-nephew in the photo’s comments. “She was always ticked off at being subjected to such a nuisance, as if she had had to go out in the yard to chase off a neighbor’s dog or something.”

Library of Congress/Flickr.
The Boxer: 1910-1915

Frank “Spike” Kelly was a boxer based in Chicago from 1910 to 1918. He was also Flickr user candeekissez’s grandfather. “His son, my dad, was also a boxer,” she writes in the comments. Two posts below, Bob Pack responds:”Spike Kelly was my grandfather also. I am your cousin …”

Library of Congress/Flickr.
The Pilot: 1934

Here, pilot May Bradford welds part of a plane used for an air race between England and Australia. One Flickr user identifies Bradford as a great-great-aunt, while another says she’s her great-great-grandmother. Another commenter says her husband’s great-grandmother died in the same plane crash that killed Bradford.

State Library of New South Wales/Flickr.
The Lieutenant: 1917

Major Syd Addison is the pilot on the right, and Lieutenant Hudson Fysh is on the left. Flickr user Stephanie Fysh discovered Hudson, a member of the Australian Flying Corps and one of the founders of Qantas Airways, was a relative of her husband’s. This photo was taken in a Palestinian Arab village. The men are seated in a Bristol Fighter aircraft, a popular two-seater plane during World War I.

Australian War Memorial collection/Flickr.