Portraits is the theme of this week's Sepia Saturd ay prompt. No shortage in my collection with each one revealing a distinctive story hat makes family history such an absorbing hobby - much more than just names and dates!

My great grandmother Maria Danson, nee Rawcliffe (1859-1919) is at the heart of my family history, with her life giving me many stories for my writings. She was the seventh of eight sisters (five surviving infancy) and went on to have eight sons and as her last child, only daughter Jennie. She showed determination and resilience particularly in the latter part of her life, when her husband died in 1906, her eldest son Harry in 1907, and in 1905 her daughter in law Sarah died of TB leaving a baby daughter Annie whom Maria took into her own home. The First World War brought more sorrow - the death on the Somme in 1916 of her youngest son George. A year later young Annie's father John Danson committed suicide whilst in army training.

Maria's only daughter and youngest child. Jennie Danson (11897-1986) was by all accounts had a feisty character and held her own against her eight older brothers. Jennie was determined to lead her own life. She shocked her mother by cutting off he long haired plait and adopting the 1920's fashionable short cut.

Following her mother’s death in 1919, Jennie took over the reins of the household, looking after her four brothers still unmarried and living at home, plus her ypung niece Annie who had been orphaned. Her marriage in 1929 prompted all her brothers to set get married in the following years.

My great uncle George Danson (1894-1916) who worked on W. H. Smith's station bookstalls and sang in the local church choir. He was the favourite uncle of my mother and aunt and was killed on the Somme in 1916.

My great grandfather James Matthewss of Wolverhampton in the English Midlands . John was a staunch Methodist who conducted the local church choir. His wife Matilda Such had had a checkered childhood as a third illegitimate daughter born to her unmarried nam-sake mother.

My paternal grandmother Mary Barbara Matthews (1876-1958), was the third of ten children born to John and Matilda Matthews Mary's brother Arthur was killed in Gallipoli in the First World War and her sister Fanny Elizabeth died aged 33 in 1909, following a tragic accident when a lighted candle set fire to her apron and she died of the burns.

It is hard to believable that these two portraits are of the same man - Edward Stuart Ingram Smith, my cousin's grandfather. They depict a sad tale, tracing his life from a handsome artistic young man to a man 30 years later, with a dispirited air, haunted by his WW1 war experiences and the breakdown of his marriage.

My father John Weston of Blackpool, Lancashire often talked about his war experiences and I am afraid it did provoke the reaction at times of “Not the war again, Dad”. It was only later that we came to realise what a life-defining period it was, and I persuaded him to write an account for his granddaughter. I was also proud to add my father's accounts to the BBC World War Two People's Story online.

Dad served in the RAF Codes & Ciphers Branch and was seconded to General Bradley’s US 12th Army Group HQ. He landed at Omaha beach after D-Day and advanced via St. Mere Eglise, Avranches, Versailles, Paris, Verdun and Luxembourg through to Wiesbaden in Germany. Immediately after VE Day he was posted to Burma where he was for VJ Day.

My father’s zealous spirit was reflected throughout his life.

He joined the church choir at the age of seven and remained a choir member wherever he lived, with a love of hymns and sacred music. Listening to Sunday Half Hour (hymn singing on the radio) was part of our Sunday evening ritual when I was growing up - as was TV's "Songs of Praise".

On his school life, Dad recalled " the deputy head was very good (he had been gassed in the war). He was keen on poetry and I enjoyed it, he had us do the Merchant of Venice. I was Bassanio. I was very fond of him which, of course, made me listen to what he had to say". In later life, Dad could still recite his favourite poems, often in dramatic tones.

Dad left school at 14 and worked as an errand boy in a local grocer's shop. He then became a commercial traveller (salesman) and rose to the position of Sales Director of a small Scottish company - not bad for a largely self educated lad!

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Sepia Saturday gives an opportunity for genealogy bloggers

to share their family history and memories through photographs