Patrick McFarlane and his 9 Sisters - Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday  is a daily blogging prompt used by many genealogy bloggers to help them tell stories of their ancestors.  Here the empahsis is on family photographs.  

This is such a striking picture that I had to share it. I was doing some family history research for a friend and this was among the family memorabilia, though with no names on the reverse. 

My friend's grandmother was Bridget McFarlane who was known to have Irish connections and be part of a large family of women. The certifcate of  Bridget's marriage to Thomas Spowart  in 1894 provided the names of her parents - James McFarlane, a quarryman and Ann Lauchlin.  Bridget’s age was given as 18, so born c. 1876.  In the 1901  census, her birthplace was given as Bannockburn, near Stirling.  These three pieces of information enabled Bridget's family to be traced in the census returns.  Parents James and Ann were both born in Ireland and they had ten children in 22 years (1876-1898)  - Bridget (the eldest), Kate, Mary, Patrick, Annie, Ellen, Sarah, Jane, Maggie and Jemima.    

The dark clothes and solemn expressions indicated that the occasion was a funeral.  Could the central figure holding a bible or prayer book be Ann McFarlane, nee Lauchlin, surrounded by nine daughters and only son Patrick?  Was the young girl carrying flowers the youngest daughter Jemima?  The style of dress and the possible age of the girl could date the photograph to the early 20^th century c.1910.   The estimated date of the photograph was confirmed by tracing father James’ death online (http://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk/)  to October 6^th 1912.  

This was indeed a McFarlane family photograph. 

With thanks to Edna for allowing me to feature this photograph