Interpretation from two family photographs, with facial features altered for privacy. The original photographs are undated; the aged paper and white vignette are retained.
- Who
- Antonio Candido Tavares
- Born
- around 1850, Trás-os-Montes, Portugal
- Lived
- region of Ituiutaba and Capinópolis, Brazil
- When
- original photographs undated
- Account
- Family records that he fled Portugal after being called up for colonial military service.
Where this comes from
I was almost forty the first time I saw his face.
My grandmother’s grandfather. Born around 1850 in Trás-os-Montes, in the north of Portugal. Died in the interior of Brazil, between Ituiutaba and Capinópolis. He fled Portugal after being called up for colonial military service.
That is nearly all of it. A few photographs, a name I learned late, a story told in one sentence. His children could have filled a book. It did not occur to them. Everyone around them had left somewhere too, and a life you are inside does not look like something to write down.
We have more pictures than any generation before us and we are making the same mistake. A picture on its own says nothing. Someone has to say who is in it, and why it mattered, while there is still someone who can.
After Keep does that work for families. I started it because nobody did it for mine.
What we make