Could they be your family?

Anne Stewart, painted circa 1790. Nothing else is known of her... yet.

  

In our September/October issue we'll be visiting a dealer in England who has taken on the monumental task of researching all of the miniature portraits in her gallery. She's an admitted geneology nut (we are, too... Lisa Bingham's related to Marie Antoinette!) and has been able to reunite some very special paintings with their original families. Others, however, wait...



Mary Ann was born on 5 June 1835 and was four years old when this portrait was painted. Her parents were Thomas and Mary Rayer (née Cooke). She lived at Hill Court, Longdon by Upton on Severn near Worcester.



Charles and Mary were the children of Irish-born James Ruddell-Todd, MP for Honiton between 1832 and 1835. Charles was born around 1831 and was educated at Rugby School. He married his cousin Sophia Mary Campbell, the eldest daughter of Capt James Archibald Campbell of Inverneill & Ross. Charles died in 1901 at the age of 70 and is buried in Ryde. Mary Ruddell-Todd was born in 1834 and in 1858 she married George Fiott Day, a lieutenant in the Royal Navy during the Crimean War and one of the earliest recipients of the Victoria Cross. They had three daughters.