Snapshots from Home - a comfort for World War I and II soldiers / myLot

Rockingham, Australia

January 6, 2026 9:20pm CST

We watch Antiques Roadshow most afternoons and yesterday a member of the public had brought in a number of photographs complete with forms saying ‘Snapshots from Home’ across the top of each one. During World War I, the YMCA established the Snapshots Home League where servicemen could fill in a form to request specific photos of their parents, wife, children, etc. Voluntary photographers would take the photos which were then put in waterproof envelopes before being delivered to the recipients. The scheme was reintroduced for WWII and was wound up in 1946 by which time over 500,000 photographs had been sent to servicemen. One volunteer had fulfilled over 2,000 requests. I can only imagine how much these photos would have meant to those serving overseas. The photo is of my uncle who served in the navy.

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11 responses

@DaddyEvil (165140)

• United States

7 Jan

I remember photos of my two oldest brothers in their military garb in mom's photo album when I was a kid. Then mom started albums for each kid and those albums were given to my two brothers. I have the album mom made for me and it has every photo with me that mom had. When I was in my twenties and bought my first desktop and a scanner, I scanned through every photo mom had (and asked the family to let me borrow all their photos, too) and placed them in digital albums titling each album with that brother or sister's name. It took me over a year to do it but by the next family reunion, I had completed the albums and made disks with each family their own. (I took 52 disks to the family reunion and only had one unclaimed by the time I went home. I mailed that one to a brother who lived in England at the time.) Of course, I still have the original disks with everybody in them.

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@DaddyEvil (165140)

• United States

7 Jan

@JudyEv Thank you. My sister had to identify anyone I didn't know in the photos so it took longer than I expected.

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Fleur

@Fleura (33308)

• United Kingdom

7 Jan

That is a huge project, well done!

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Judy Evans

@JudyEv (368754)

• Rockingham, Australia

7 Jan

What a massive amount of work that would have been! But what a great thing to do.

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Loretta

@noni1959 (11933)

• United States

7 Jan

I like the Antiques Roadshow and some items are so amazing. I never heard of Snapshots Home League. That was a wonderful accomplishment fulfilling 2,000 request.

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Judy Evans

@JudyEv (368754)

• Rockingham, Australia

7 Jan

All sorts of things come up on that show. It's incredibly interesting at times.

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Loretta

@noni1959 (11933)

• United States

13h

@JudyEv I remember a lady taking a pocket watch she had passed down to her and it was worth over $250,000! If I took something and found out I would get thousands, I wouldn't know what to do with myself.

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Judy Evans

@JudyEv (368754)

• Rockingham, Australia

@noni1959 Their reactions are funny sometimes. Some are speechless; others say very little and others jump up and down!