AncestorNews: Label Logic

When I was in Kansas last fall, I looked through my grandmother’s photo album with my aunt, and I remember wondering about the people whose pictures weren’t labeled. Since they were in grandma’s family album, it’s a good bet they were relatives, but who they were, I’ll never know.

Labeling family photos doesn’t seem very important to us, does it? After all, we all know who the people are. But how about 100 years from now? Without those labels, our future generations will be as frustrated with our albums as I was with grandma’s.

The October 2003 Family Tree Magazine has some great tips on labeling family photos, including what to do with cased images like daguerreotypes and tintypes. If you don’t subscribe to the magazine, pick up a copy at your newsstand—I think you’ll be surprised at the suggestions contributing editor Maureen Taylor detailed in the article.

Since I take primarily digital photos, I’ve been looking into various digital albums, like Paint Shop Photo Album 4. This album lets me organize and archive my digital photos (as do several other programs). I also like being able to create multiple albums because I save photos in albums for specific trips, such as North Dakota 2003 and Montana 2002.

For more on family photos:

• Genealogy photo album sites
geneasearch.com/photos.htm

• Photo albums—care and preservation
genealogy.about.com/library/authors/ucmishkin2a.htm

• Using photos in your research
genealogy.com/10_phtus.html

• More photo labeling tips
msn.ancestry.com/library/view/news/tip/5808.asp