Bemister Gallery - We Need Your Pictures !!

The Bemister Gallery is our effort to share the visual heritage of the Bemisters of Carbonear with friends and family but we need your pictures - to make it happen.

Due to the fact that families become widely distributed and portraits and other pictures were not easy to copy at one time - we sometime end up without ever seeing a picture of our own ancestors. It thus become a special treat to discover an image of our own ancestors.

William Willis Bemister (1789-1863)

I experienced this when I recently found a picture in the Centre for Newfoundland Studies, of my GGG grandfather - William Willis Bemister (1789-1863), who arrived in Newfoundland at the age of 21.

William Willis Bemister (1789-1863)

Next to the picture was one of his son - my GG grandfather - Capt. Willis Bemister (1819-1869). The picture was not new to me but knowing who it was, broke new ground. A copy unidentified had survived within my own family but we never knew who it was.

Capt. Willis Bemister (1819-1869)

These images were part of the Forward family fonds and Forward ledgers 1750-1928 which had been donated to the Maritime History Archive, Memorial University.

The collection also includes many other important photographs, and higher resolution images can be ordered from the site for your own printing.