One important task for today's genealogists is organizing and preserving old photos. Over the weekend, I spent a few hours looking through some old inherited photos that I'd seen before but never digitized or checked for important information. All too often shoeboxes of old photos are forgotten in closets or attics, or even thrown away ... but savvy genealogists know old photos are goldmines of information, and a joy to look at, to boot.
The first task (digitization) was easy - I lay out the photos on a flat surface, took a high-resolution picture, and then flipped them over to record the captions on the back. However, about a quarter of the photos had no captions. For most of the mystery photos, I knew who the people were and used an archival-quality pen (from the EasyGenie archival-quality pen set) to add the names and other details, as well as my own name and a timestamp.
But there were a few snapshots and portraits that had people I didn't recognize. For these photos, I texted the digital image to my dad to ask him if he recognized them. Except for some very old photos from the early 1900s, he was able to identify the mystery people. I added their names and other details, for my own reference ... and for the generations that follow.
