Who are you and what are you doing in my ancestry?

The mystery cartoonist had a sharp wit and an eye for detail. But who was the person behind the pen?

Some of us members of the “older generation” have heard this before:

“Write the names and details on the back of your old family photographs, because once you’re gone people may not know who they are ...”

My grandmother told me that, as she bemoaned the fact her forebears had left her with sepia-toned images of ancestors gone-by, and no clue to who they may have been.

There was plenty of conjecture: “That one has to be from the Smith side, as he has Granddad’s nose ...”

But none of it was conclusive and the pictures were passed down, nameless.

There is a notation pencilled on the back of this photo but it's not helpful: "Alice took this photo but I don't like it."

They were passed, along with more recent snapshots, to my mother. She could identify the more recent snaps, saying things like “this is a photo of Aunty Gladys and Uncle Perce, and that’s Granddad’s car in the background ... I must go through one day and write the names on the back.”

Well she didn’t, and now I have not only Gran’s stack of mystery ancestors, but Mum’s as well.

I can remember some of the names she told me. I can identify the one of a rakish Aunty Gladys, all cloche hat and flapper dress. I know which ones are Gran’s father, and Uncle Jimmy as a child.

I must go through and write the names on the back. Because now I’m the eldest, and probably the only one left that knows a few of the who’s whos.

I’d better stock up on pencils though, because our family is a snap-happy bunch and there are a lot of photos.

Whoever took this image left no clue as to who the seated lady or her bonny babe could be.

Perhaps more intriguing though, among the photos are items of a more personal nature: Tiny leather-bound bibles, some helpfully named inside; an autograph book with poems, quotes (one rather rude, for the time) and signatures, entries dated from 1919; a small birthday book with a pithy quote for each day, and birthdates as far back as 1873.

The one I like the most though is an exercise book that belonged to an A Williams, who went to Waipawa District High School.

This one has no helpful dates, but Waipawa District High School was closed by 1959 and merged with Waipukurau District High School to create CHB College.

So there’s a clue. Another clue is the presence of the name Alan Williams in the very back of the book, and a little research reveals a mention in Papers Past of Alan Williams in an Ōtāne Fancy Dress Carnival as a child, dressed as a clown, in 1926.

The best part though, is that Alan - if Alan it was, did exactly no schoolwork in this exercise book.

At some stage of the book’s existence it has had the handwritten word “History” scratched out and the word “sketching” scrawled tentatively below.

The repurposed school exercise book holds a secret or two - firstly, who owned it?

There the plot thickens a little, for the sketches seem to be signed by “S.A.W.” - so maybe a sibling purloined young Alan’s history book for their own use?

However it happened, I’m glad it did because a careful paging through the book, very careful as it is quite fragile, reveals the work of a talented cartoonist. Whoever S.A.W. was, they had a sharp wit and a flair for drawing.

The cartoons poke fun at trains and love and marriage and the country life ... but reveal nothing about where they were penned, or by whom.

It’s a conundrum of cartoons and has resisted all Google searches and more than one trawl through genealogy sites. The name Williams is hardly a clue, as there are rather a lot of them, locally, flourishing in the Hawke’s Bay landscape since Archdeacon Samuel Wiliams and his wife Mary settled there at the behest of Governor George Grey in 1853.

Although there appears to have been a Reverend K Williams in Waipukurau before then, so he may have helped launch the Williams name in the region.

"A little railway bridge" courtesy of a long-ago mystery cartoonist.

The name Alan in the back of the sketchbook could have helped but there are two of those listed locally on genealogy sites, each with a different middle name and no more information bar entries on long-ago electoral rolls.

It would be fun to find out who this long-ago cartoonist was. Instead of a photo with no words on the back, he or she has left us a book full of images and words but still no identity.

I’m glad I found it though and it can hang out in the box with the mystery ancestors until someone comes up with a better idea. It will have plenty of company. Who knows, maybe the mystery cartoonist is lurking in there as well, sepia-toned with no name on the back?

Rachel Wise is editor of the CHB Mail and news director for Hawke’s Bay Community Newspapers. Rachel has worked in newspapers throughout Hawke’s Bay for 23 years and has covered everything from breaking news to flower arranging and most things in between.