Welcome to
The Ancestral Lens
A Personal Photography and Genealogy Digital Library
This website brings together the various forms in which I have privately ‘published’ my photography and genealogy over the last twenty years. I used to have a website that relied on galleries for the image content but I was not good at maintaining it and so it felt into abeyance. By giving access in a simple, structured way to my digital books, PowerPoint and audio-visual presentations, that I routinely put together for my own purposes, I can add much more detailed content in an easily accessible form. My digital books and Powerpoint presentations are available from the bookcase below and the audio-visual are on a separate page. I have also decided, for better or for worse, to include videos of my saxophone playing journey. They are not the best musicianship in the world but I had fun making them!
You are able to access all of my digital books from this bookcase. Scroll the bookcase to reach lower shelves. When you click on a particular title, the book will open in a separate window. I would advise using the ‘full screen’ button on the toolbar at the bottom of the window to maximise the page view. Each book also contains a search function, useful for those books such as ‘Son of Wessex Stock’ and ‘Monochrome and Me’. There is a zoom function if you need to get closer in to the individual page detail. Click on the ‘Short Summary Box’ below to reveal brief details of each publication. ‘Son of Wessex Stock’ contains data on living relatives and requires a password. Please e-mail me to request the current password (changes every two months).
The digital books can be purchased. I use the Blurb platform for all my publications, which are large format 13 inch by 11 inch, hard back books. Because they will be printed on demand, the cost is often high depending on the number of pages in the book. The cost of a single printed copy is typically in the range £100-150. That is one of the reasons that I decided to make the books available online in flipbook format. I am also willing to provide an individual book in a stand-alone flipbook format (as a downloadable exe file) for £10 for a single individual use (i.e. not for subsequent distribution). Please contact me if you want to pursue one of these options.
April 1st 2026: ‘From My Portfolio‘ updated and 2011 publication ‘Between the Ideal and the Possible‘ added.
March 24th 2026: Added ‘Out of the Shoe Box‘ and ‘Winter Walking in the High Atlas‘ to the bookcase.
March 20th 2026: Launch of ‘The Ancestral Lens‘ Website
Book Summaries
This book contains images from 90 year old negative files that were taken during John Ducane Nelson’s schooldays, skiing trips and a round the world expedition in the early 1930s.
A preview of images taken for my largest photographic project to date, a four year project to provide a portrait on Northumberland through the landscape around its churches. The book will be available on this site in the late summer 2026. The images are taken from a recent presentation I gave on the project.
Password protected. This book is the product of 30 years genealogical research on the following families: Adams, Baker, Best, Denning, England, Eveleigh, Gosling, Hockey, Hoskins, Keitch, Locke, Meister, Musgrove, Napper, Phippen, Udy and Wellington. Note: several graphics in this book were generated using transparent gifs. In the conversion process, these graphics now have black backgrounds, which does not obscure their content but does obscure the background images on which they are placed. The printed version of the book does not suffer from this problem.
A recent 2025 photographic project undertaken with the Queen’s Hall Theatre Group in Hexham when they staged ‘Accidental Death of an Anarchist’.
A collection of images that I have selected to enter into my local photographic society’s knock-out competition, the Brannigan Cup. I will update and extend this selection as I go back through my image archive.
Password protected. The images in this book cover the period 1942 to 1969 in the life of my family, from the engagement of my parents, to the emigration of my sister to Australia in 1967 and family holidays to 1970. My Mum had these all stored in a box that she was always going to sort out but never did!
Published in 2011, the book celebrates luthier Nigel Forster’s 25 years making beautiful instruments. Nigel describes his philosophy and methodology, illustrated by the images taken by Dave Best, following their 18 month collaboration. Here is the link to Nigel’s website: NK Forster Guitars.
Images taken by John Harwood Nelson over the period 1900-1920, many of which are not captioned. Four albums from this period were consolidated into one album and digitally preserved.
In this presentation I combined images of musicians, taking at various festivals over the last 20 years, with images taken of guitar craftsmen Nigel Forster, who celebrated 25 years of being a luthier in 2010.
A photographic journey around the temples of Angkor Wat and Ton Le Sap lake in Cambodia, Ho Chi Minh City, the Mekong delta and the Central Highlands of Vietnam.
A compilation of many of my favourite monochrome images from my own archive taken over the period 2005 to 2023, with a commentary on what the images mean to me.
Four friends embark on a KE Adventure Holiday to ascend Mount Toubkal, the highest peak in the Atlas Mountains in Morroco, in February 2011. Eight days from the souks of Marrakesh to the high kingdom of the lammergeier.