My grandpa was from the last generation of Geordie sailors. He was an engineer for the merchant navy, hence the great uniform. Gran stayed home and cared for my mom and her siblings while grandpa was out sailing. He once showed me a map of all the voyages he had been on, and i wish i knew what happened to it.
Looks closer to 1850s, not a comment on your relatives, but the picture quality.
I feel you on the last sentence though, my parents used to keep a bunch of these really old photos in an old shoe box. A lot of them got destroyed in a flood, but I spent one summer with a scanner and an old laptop restoring as many photos as I could. Wish I’d done it sooner.
My grandpa died yesterday and so my mom was sending out pictures. She just took a picture of it with her phone, so i cropped out the frame to post it, which definitely makes the quality look poorer. My great grandfather on the left there was an old Geordie dock worker with horrid shell shock from WW1, which you can see in his eyes.
I have a bunch of photos of my American grandma’s photos that i want to start scanning. I even have video film that says “Christmas 1942” that i am eager to see.