It’s one thing when the photos are from your own family.

You may have tons of them.

You may even put them up in your house as vintage decor.

You may know who they were, or you may not.

You may learn about them from a variety of sources.

You might even visit the “old country” like Foster and Panda and participate in a traditional folk dance.

But if you’re a die-hard fan of vintage photos, you don’t just stop with your own family tree. You actually have to look at pictures of people who aren’t even related to you. You have to study and save photos of these people. You find yourself wondering what their lives were like, what was going through their minds as they posed for their portraits, and if, by some chance you just might be related to them after all. And then, if you’re Swedish and you’re fortunate, you might find a website like Swedish Roots. And if you’re like me, it’s all over from there.

At first you are mostly interested in finding people who look like they could be related to you. You save them, naming them things like “looks like relative” or “some resemblance”.

Then you start saving pictures of Swedes who look like your non-Swedish friends, or random people you know.

After a while you forget who looks like who and you’re just into the outfits and hairstyles.

If you read “Mad About Plaid” you saw a lot of plaid outfits, but there were also plenty of stripes, polka dots, and a variety of non-plaids which didn’t make it into that post.

Besides the different fabric styles, there was also a fair amount of lace, both on collars and on the dresses themselves.

Lace was popular not only for ladies, but also for children and babies.

And speaking of baby clothes! I named these “Swallowed up in dress”, “Swallowed up in striped dress” and “Cute baby with socks”. Look at the boots on the first one. I can’t imagine getting these outfits on a baby, much less the lace-up boots! And “Cute baby with socks” looks like one sock is coming off and the other is dirty on the bottom.

Looking at the pictures of babies always makes me wonder if they actually made it to adulthood. Not all the babies in my family history did, as you can read in “The Day of Adversity”. The young mother from Jonkoping (Swedish Roots says her name was Eva Durling) looks a bit apprehensive, so perhaps that was her first child. The second lady looks older and more confident, and the third one looks very “no nonsense”, like she’s done this before. You wouldn’t want to mess with her, or with her kids. And maybe it’s just me, but those look like maternity dresses in the photo on the right.

Just for fun, here are (I’m assuming) some dads with their babies. I love the expression of the baby on the top left.

You can also find photos of babies being held by siblings or grandparents, which are always cute.

Then there were the hats. . .

Not to mention glasses. . . and so much more!

AND . . . not to be left out. . .

“Hey Mom, can we go through these old letters next?”

“I’m pretty sure I could help you translate these.”

“Can we look at these old books?”

“Do you have anything in this old trunk we can take out?”

“Okay, then wake us up when you have something we can help you with.”