Pictures...

[Wheeler]

Do you have a box, or several boxes of pictures that were taken over the years? Or maybe your mother had those pictures but did not identify the people on them. Start going through them now, a few at a time, because someday you will forget who those people are. We all get that way when we get older. You say "I'll never forget which baby that is." But you do!!! When several years pass you look at these pictures and these babies all look alike. So when you have pictures developed at least put the date on them... A name would help, but if there's a date you can figure out which one of the children it is.

If you do not take the time to put names on pictures, you commit the sin of omission and all that you have done as a genealogist will be lessened with that omission....

so get the box,

and put it next to the place where you spend a lot of time

and when things are slow, or you get tired of what you're doing, identify the picture, people... place... occasion... date

one at a time,

then the next

the next

and the next

and pretty soon they will all be done.....

 

If you are not going to do this, then give the box to someone in your family who will and do not delay.....

dont cheat those that follow you of the knowledge that you can give to them for free....

and

let the person in that picture live just that much longer in someones memory....

[logcabinmama]

Thank you for the reminder, SCMary.

[redhenfarm]

That is so true! DH's cousin just gave him a pile of photos. We recognized some (a few of DH and his brothers when they were kids, his grandmother and grandfather through the years) but many we don't have a clue. Some even have names but we don't know who they were. We sort of figured out some were his grandmother's sister and her family in Wisconsin years ago and the ones with the sister are usually marked "Martha" or "Me, my daughter, etc.". When we go through our own photos we'll have ones like "three fish DH caught in 1978"

[Linda]

we got a lot of pictures with no names or dates on them of DH family. what I did was put them allon a board cover it with glass like an oversize piture frame them put numbers on the glass by the pictures, took a box and paper and took it to a family reuion with a poster board that read Do you know any one? we where able to fine out whom a lot of them where.

[Homesteader]

An archivist told me NOT to use pen on the back of photos. Pencil is much better. Over time the ink will damage the paper. I assume a pen that uses acid free/archival ink might be ok to use too.