What is the story behind this mysterious photo album left at Global Edmonton?

Sarah Ryan is a journalist and anchor at Global News Edmonton. This is his first person account.

For over a year, I’ve been trying to uncover the secrets of a mysterious antique photo album delivered to Global Edmonton.

It arrived at the TV station in 2023 – with no rating, no return address and no context.

The album is full of sepia photos, many of which were taken in Scotland. How they ended up at a news station in Edmonton… I set out to find out.

Most of the photos are posed, portrait-style images, clearly taken in a studio. Others are amateur and candid images depicting life on the prairies.

First, I thought the book might have been stolen. Maybe the thief changed his mind and was putting it back in a safe space. But Edmonton police have had no reports of old photo albums going missing.

So, I thought I’d take the album to a local photography expert: Fay Cunningham of the Antique Photo Parlor at the West Edmonton Mall.

“For its age, you know, it’s in very good condition,” she said, her eyes shining as she turned the album over in her hands.

She has been taking professional photos for almost half a century. She flipped through the pages, analyzing each image and explaining how much photography has changed over the decades.

No one said “cheese” back then and dental hygiene wasn’t a priority. Cunningham said there was also another reason why everyone looked so serious at the time.

“To smile in a photo was to look like an imbecile. You want to be seen as sort of sophisticated.

She believes the oldest images date from the late 1800s and were taken in a studio by a trained photographer.

At the time, portraits were expensive and usually only done for special occasions, such as weddings.

Based on their clothing, Cunningham believes the family was wealthy.

“With these dresses, it was sometimes very awkward to sit down,” she said, showing photos of women standing in elaborate dresses.

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“They weren’t made of polyester, so they really wrinkled.”

Cunningham said they also had to make do with natural light sources.

“They didn’t have a light, they didn’t have a flash. So they would use a northeast window and people would have this light on the side of their face. They would have a neck brace and a folder to hold them,” she explained.

“An exposure can last, depending on the sun of the day, two to three minutes, so you won’t dare move.”

I also contacted Barbara Isherwood, lecturer in art history at the University of Toronto.

She believes the album is a late Victorian photo album, which contains “business card” images, which were passed around to friends and neighbors “a bit like trading cards”, Isherwood said.

“They were affordable and extremely popular. Everyone from royalty to merchants had them made.

There are other clues, not just in the photos themselves, that help date the images.

A sort of business card, engraved on the mats, includes the name of the photographer, the address of his studio and his logo.

“At that time, it was an advertisement to say, ‘It’s me and this is where you can come and have your picture taken,’” Cunningham said.

I found one website that documents Victorian photographers from Glasgow, Scotland.

Some of her sample images feature business cards identical to those in our mystery photo album.

Unfortunately, there is no contact option for the website creator.

I contacted our talented IT specialist to see if the metadata could reveal who is behind the website, but to no avail. They didn’t want to be found.

However, some information from the website leads me to believe that the oldest photos in this album are from the 1880s, about 145 years ago.

But it’s not just the Scottish portraits that make this album so intriguing.

Cunningham and I also took a closer look at the most recent photos in the album, probably dating from the 1910s-1920s.

There are several photos of horses and farmers’ fields.

“All these crops? It’s a whole different time in history for these people,” Cunningham suggested.

The images appear to show a prairie landscape. Our thoughts? The family immigrated to Canada, bringing this album with them.

There are also photos of children.

“It’s someone with their little camera,” Cunningham said.

Then I found two names written on the back of this photo of two young girls: Lillian and Hellen Shipp.

This clue led me to contact Claudine Nelson of the Alberta Genealogical Society.

Volunteers used these names and this photo of Sunnyfield Farm to trace the Shipp family through history.

The Genealogical Society connected me with a woman named Shipp, but her husband had long died and she knew nothing about any albums.

Unfortunately, her husband’s family also wanted nothing to do with this or the Global story. They didn’t even care to see him.

Old photo albums like this aren’t worth much financially. It’s the family memories that are precious: the snapshots of days gone by.

“I’d say maybe that’s why you got it.” Because no one in the family said, ‘This is really important to me,'” Cunningham said.

While the album clearly has no significance to the Shipps, it does to those who strive to preserve history.

The Edmonton Archives has already expressed interest in preserving it and Global News intends to donate it.

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