The Historic Photo Scanning Project

 Salt Lake City at Main and South Temple, looking northwest, taken in the very early 1900s

My Great-grandmother, Margaret Godfrey Jarvis Overson, was a professional photographer in the small eastern Arizona community of St. Johns. Her father, Charles Godfrey DeFriez Jarvis started the tradition with his own photography business. The photographs date from the late 1800s until the mid-1940s, with a few photos into the 1950s. Many of the photographs were published in conjunction with her book.

Overson, Margaret Godfrey Jarvis. George Jarvis and Joseph George De Friez Genealogy. Mesa?, Ariz: M.G. Jarvis Overson, 1957.

Last December, after a year's long search, we finally located the bulk of her photographs and negatives thanks to a blog post by my daughter, Amy in her blog, TheAncestorFiles.blogspot.com. I have been publishing some of the photos as photographic mysteries from time to time, but I thought it would be a good idea to begin publishing some of the other photographs.

Many of the photos are of the Overson family and relatives, but as the town photographer, many are also of graduations, sports teams, family and town gatherings and other group shots. There are hundreds of photos of people who lived in Apache County. Hence, the mystery photos.

The physical collection consists of glass plate negatives in a variety of sizes, acetate negatives cut from sheet film also in a variety of sizes and some prints. My original estimate was about 1000 or so negatives and prints. I have now been scanning the collection for about 9 months and processing the photos and have less the 1/4 of the items scanned. I have revised my estimate to around 3500 to 4000 photos including all the negatives and prints.

So, from time to time I will be sharing some of these priceless photographs.

Unidentified family from the 1800s