How Do You Organize Your Heritage Photos?

[Susan - s3js]

So, let's start off with one of the big ones. How DO you handle your family history photos?

I have a folder inside each of my family research folder simply entitled "Pictures" Then I have folders inside for each family line and subfolders for photos shared with me by my research cousins. I often number the photos (starting with 0001 Person's name and any other caption I need/want- the leading zeroes are important or they sort funny and this allows for up to 9999 photos) so that if I have a list of who's who, the event if any and when I got them and from whom in a nice neat appropriately named Word document, it's easy to find that information. Most of the ones I get now are digital, so they are easy but I still have boxes in storage that I will be able to play with soon and get scanned. I make a backup copy of the folders and paste them into 2 different external drives. I don't trust cloud storage yet.

But what do I do with the photos themselves? I think I am going to purchase a box like this
and the smaller boxes to go inside so I can keep them sorted and the boxes labeled with the documents describing the contents.



I would love to know how all of you handle your photos. Maybe there is a much easier way.

 

[wombat146]

ummm, they are all in a big box in a cupboard waiting to be scanned!!!! LOL!!! I really do need to get organised and that storage box you posted looks ideal!

 

[LSlycord]

Oh my goodness Susan. I need for you to come to my house and help. LOL I have many boxes that are stored in a closet under the stairs. They are now scattered all over the kitchen island and the dining room table because Shaun needs at least 50 for a school project. Laughing hysterically...I definitely have more than 50! And I'm using Shaun and his school project to get at least a few of them organized.

 

[Jam-on-toast]

We don't have that many... so it's just one folder divided into sub-folders - grandma's album, blue box etc- ... a few years back my mom and I scanned some of them - then I created PDF pages with info on who is on the photos... and saved them as jpegs... no sure why I did it in such a complicated way... lol... I have digital copies of many of the photos, but not all... still working on it thinking I have time...

 

[Hamer Lodge]

I took all my heritage photos out of an album to scan them, and haven't put them back, they now sit in a box in the cupboard Luckily my Mum is still alive and can put names to a lot of the faces and stories as well.

 

[Susan - s3js]

Oh my goodness Susan. I need for you to come to my house and help. LOL I have many boxes that are stored in a closet under the stairs. They are now scattered all over the kitchen island and the dining room table because Shaun needs at least 50 for a school project. Laughing hysterically...I definitely have more than 50! And I'm using Shaun and his school project to get at least a few of them organized.

Linda, that's an excellent idea! My boys are getting really interested in genealogy so maybe they will help!

 

[Susan - s3js]

I took all my heritage photos out of an album to scan them, and haven't put them back, they now sit in a box in the cupboard Luckily my Mum is still alive and can put names to a lot of the faces and stories as well.

Debra, maybe it's not a bad idea to not put them back in. Is your album archival? If it is an old album, probably not so you might want to put copies back to maintain its integrity but protect the originals. I would think twice before trying to preserve it myself. Most museum curators or archivists are happy to to tell you how to do it safely . You know,when I was paper scrapping, I would scan the photos I wanted to use then I would scrap the copy and put the photos and copies of the supporting documents in archival protectors and slide them between the pages in the album where they were secure and out of sight. If I was using lift up flaps I would slide the originals in an archival sleeve then place it under the flap, again secure and out of sight, but easy to see. I would also always have some sort of "handle" to lift the flaps or slide photos out so nothing paper actually had to be touched, which meant slits in sleeve protectors and such - or affixing the flaps to the outside of the page protectors.

I soon found that made for an unwieldy album, though, so I started making a LO key for each album that noted as much as I knew about the photos and where the original was, if I even had the original, and its provenance. When I did my mother's Shutterfly album, I sent her copies of the documents that pertained, and kept an electronic copy in with the digi pages. And paranoid that I would lose something, I made a copy of that whole folder and put it in not only my scrapbooking backup file, but dropped a copy in the media folder for my Legacy Family Tree software - the only thing I store on my C drive, but also back up onto its own external so it's unplug and go in case of emergency (I have one for my scrapbooking files, too - I just don't trust cloud storage).

 

[Susan - s3js]

We don't have that many... so it's just one folder divided into sub-folders - grandma's album, blue box etc- ... a few years back my mom and I scanned some of them - then I created PDF pages with info on who is on the photos... and saved them as jpegs... no sure why I did it in such a complicated way... lol... I have digital copies of many of the photos, but not all... still working on it thinking I have time...

I hear you, Olga! But time is something we may not have, eh? Eternity is only the difference between one heartbeat or breath and the next. I like your idea, though, it's not a bad idea to have several back ups, but it's also a good idea to make it in Word if you don't have full Adobe Acrobat. You can save as b oth Word and as a PDF from Word. That way it's easy to change of you need at add to the record or correct it. I know, I'm just so afraid I will lose thewm that I'm always trying to find ways to preserve my photos and research. The one thing I have not yet done is link my photos and documents in my program. It makes for a huge file and once linked you have to leave the images exactly where they are, no rearranging your drive or cleaning out the files!

 

[mcurtt]

I'm in the middle of scanning all the family pics that my mother had placed in the awful magnetic photo albums. I've done about 300 so far, have at least 200-300 more to do. These range anywhere from the late 1800's all the way up to the early 1960's. Not planning on scanning in the "more recent ones". Some were in folders that will remain in their folder in the box. Most are going to end up in archival photo pages. I've been using some by Print File. The ones I use have a black background which I love because not all photos were sized the same. With the black background, you can slide your photo in without seeing what is on the other side. I've also used black archival sulphite construction paper (acid free and resists tearing and fading) as backing in other see-thru acid free page protectors. The hardest part is trying to date the pics since many of them are unlabeled.

And my OCD requires that these be in chronological order. Not sure how I'm going to handle these. Currently I've got them in stacks, 1930's, 1940's, and for 1950's, I'm going with individual years.