After putting my family tree online with Ancestry.co.uk in the early 2000s, I was contacted by a second cousin once removed, who provided a poor photocopy of a photo purporting to show our 2xgreat grandparents and some of their 19 children, taken some time in the early 1900s. In 2025, a third cousin shared a slightly clearer copy of the same image. There is speculation as to when exactly it was taken, and who appears in it, and I’d love to put more names to faces. But what do I know so far?

The initial image was shared by Ray Bishop, grandson of Harriet Elizabeth Stocking, sister of my great grandfather James Aaron Stocking. I enhanced and colourised the image with picture tools at MyHeritage.com (above), although it’s still not very clear. A second, slightly clearer image (below) was shared by the great granddaughter of Susan Caroline Stocking and is posted here with her father’s permission:

The older couple at the centre are my 2xgreat grandparents James Thomas Stocking and his wife Alice Mary (née Wales).

Ray’s ancestor, Harriet (Bishop) is seated far right, holding a baby. My grandfather Jimmy (James Aaron Stocking), b1901, is to her right in the middle row, wearing a lace collar and being held by his father (my great-grandfather) James Aaron Stocking b1876. Jimmy looks to be around three years old. His mother Susan Caroline (née Hill) is said to be seated far left with – it is presumed – her second child, daughter Susan Caroline Stocking, b. January 1904, on her lap. Ray and I estimate that the original photo was taken in the Spring/Summer of 1904, when baby Susan would have been 4-6 months old, and Harriet’s son James Thomas Bishop would have been about a month old. It is possible, given the length of his gown, that this is a family gathering to celebrate his christening on 4 May 1904 at St Philip the Apostle Church, Avondale Square, Camberwell, London. They certainly all seem to be dressed in their ‘Sunday best’.

The second copy of the photo is annotated by one of their children with names which confirm most – but not all – of the speculation above.

I take these names to refer to the following family members:

The church was just off The Old Kent Road, their home in Herman Road, Camberwell being close by, as can be seen from the map below.

James Thomas Stocking and Alice Mary Wales had 19 children in total, and all of them – we believe – apart from baby Mary Ann Susan Stocking, who died aged 1 in 1895 – are shown here, some with their spouses, the eldest largely at the back, the youngest – apart from the babies – in the front.

While the photo wasn’t necessarily taken during Victoria’s reign (she died in 1901), the family is certainly one that grew up during at least some of her 64 years on the throne. Perhaps in honour of the new King Edward VII and his Queen, Alexandra, they named their youngest son, born in 1902, Alexander Edward Stocking. Could he be one of the young boys seated centre front, about the same age as my grandfather? The annotations on the second photo certainly suggest that’s so.

The photo below left – also enhanced at MyHeritage – is of my Dad aged about 2-3 years; he looks remarkably like his father, sitting on his own father’s knee in the big family photo (cropped version below right):

Ray had also been tracing the family for many years, and believed that the first names James Aaron had been used for generations for first-born Stocking sons. I recall also being told this by my grandmother Jessie, who said she wasn’t going to call her son that, and broke the mould with my father’s name. However, it seems the family story wasn’t quite right: although my grandfather and great-grandfather were both called James Aaron Stocking, James senior’s father was James Thomas Stocking. Later research showed that the name Aaron came down through the family of James Thomas Stocking’s wife Alice Mary Wales … but more on that later.