Description

In this snapshot, Sara Han Sin sits on the floor and colours with markers. This photograph was taken a few weeks after she arrived in Canada from South Korea.

This image is from the Somerset family collection. Felicity Somerset (née Martin) and Alan Somerset were born in England and Canada, respectively. In 1939, Felicity’s parents moved to England from Ireland, before she was born. In 1943, the Somerset family moved to Burlington, Ontario, from a farm nearby. In the years following, they moved several more times within Ontario, to: Fort William (now The Lakehead) in 1948, Windsor in 1951, Etobicoke in 1954, and Lorne Park (Mississauga) in 1955.

Felicity and Alan met when Alan attended graduate school at the University of Birmingham in the UK. After they were married, they moved to Canada. They lived in London, Ontario, from 1966 to 1992. Alan and Felicity had three biological children – Andrew, Fiona, and James – and adopted two daughters from South Korea – Sara Han Sin and Melanie Min Ae. The family later moved to Toronto, Ontario.

Alan worked as a professor in the English Department at Western University for most of his career. Felicity worked at the Employment and Economic Development department in the Federal government and at the Ontario Anti Racism Secretariat in the Ontario government. She subsequently opened her own consulting company.

Photography played an important role in Felicity and Alan’s lives, particularly inspired by their fathers’ interests in amateur photography. In their later years, photographs were exchanged to keep connected with family abroad after Alan returned and Felicity migrated to Canada. Photos were circulated in the transnational adoption process and used to capture the Somerset’s growing family. Today, Felicity is a professional fine art photographer, and the family has a vast personal archive of 1000s of family photographs.

This photograph is part of The Family Camera Network public archive at the Royal Ontario Museum, which includes photographs and oral histories, among other objects from family photo collections.