Hazel Riley            Family  Archive

​I'm now the keeper of the family archive, going back five generations.  This site will share some of these photos and documents as well as my reflections on my family.

​My family lived in Gateshead, in the NE of England, although ancestors on my mother's side came from Dorset. My father's father was Irish.  Reflecting on these photos made me rethink my own life and raised questions about working class life in the north.  I want this family archive to outlive me.

The Ancestor pages rely heavily on:

1. my mother's memoir where she wrote her memories of Rileys, Seymours and Thornes, as well as about her own life.

2. The Thorne Family tree, an impressive document where an Australian relative, Pamela Elizabeth McCoach, traced the family back to 1710.  As my aim is to create a future for the family photos, I don't include the earliest generations of Thornes.  However my archive does include some very early photographic portraits, showing that my family embraced this new art form.