Hello,

I'm researching my Forest ancestors from California, and I'd be grateful for local eyes on a family portrait.

The sitter is Samuel Horobin, baptized at Drybrook on 13 March 1831, son of Thomas Horrobin, collier, of Coalway Lane End. Samuel married Mary Ann Hale at Parkend on 29 May 1852; he was a collier and appears at Coalway Lane End in the 1851, 1861 and 1871 censuses. He emigrated to Pennsylvania in 1881.

The portrait is large — about 4½ by 5½ feet. His daughter Edith took it to America, and it is still in the family here.

He is shown standing in a studio interior, in a dark three-piece suit, wearing a badge on his left breast: a five-pointed star inside a circular medal, hanging from a broad plain ribbon. Our family notes call it Masonic, but I wonder whether it is more likely a friendly society or temperance order — Foresters, Oddfellows, Rechabites, Good Templars, or perhaps a local benefit or burial club.

Has anyone seen this badge in photographs of Forest men in regalia? I'm happy to email photographs and close-ups to anyone able to take a look, or to post them here if attachments are possible.

Many thanks,

Lottie Aston