Looking back!

I received my Ancestry DNA Kit yesterday, so I thought it appropriate to blip the earliest photograph I have of my family.  This is my great-grandmother, Catherine, who my mother was called after.  It was probably taken about 1890 - I haven't the original and this was sent to me as an e-mail attachment by my mother's half-sister Sheila's daughter Judith. My great-grandmother had nine surviving children  -  seven married and had children. She lived to be 72 years of age  -  quite a feat in those days after producing all those children.  She was said to be a whisky lover and never was without a flask in her skirt pocket  -  well, it is known as the 'water of life'!   'Water of life", was the name given by Irish monks of the early Middle Ages to distilled alcohol  -  so maybe it worked for Catherine☺