Scanning and Organizing photos

[tjscraps]

I feel like I'm a pretty type A person when it comes to photos - I tag them and delete extras every month, separate into monthly albums (on a Macbook) and back them up, etc.

Hubby's mom passed away a couple weeks ago and while searching for her childhood photos for the funeral slideshow, I found this ... THIS being hubby's childhood photos and memories (1 box of 3)

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/54366207406_d0c54393e5_z.jpg

I kidnapped the box and it is now at our house.

Questions for those of you that organize and scan photos -

1 - When you don't know the date, do you guess when organizing it?

2 - If I import these into my Mac Photos app the date I scan them will be the date that they show in 'All photos'. If I don't know the date, or if it's old photos of his ancestors, etc. - what would you do? I don't need to see them scrolling through my phone but would love to tag and organize them in the Photos app like all our other photos. I was thinking of maybe changing the date on the old photos of MIL as her birth year so that they're all together but not 'recent' in the albums?

3 - Do you scan and keep photos of people you don't know?? Hubby doesn't care.


I have no idea where to start lol Anyone who has done this - tips and tricks appreciated!

[EvelynD2]

What a wonderful treasure! My parents' photo albums, unknown to me, were thrown out when they passed away. I was heartbroken to find this out. Thankfully I had pilfered some of my childhood photos from my parents' albums when I was a teenager so I have a few childhood photos. I would make piles on the table and try to sort photos that look like they are the same time period. Then you can stack the piles in chronological order. I would buy a photo box to keep the originals in.If you have photos of family members that your husband doesn't want to keep I would still keep them. They will probably mean something to your kids when they get older. Maybe some of his relatives can help identify people in the photos if he is unable to. I have scanned the handful of childhood photos that I have and they are stored on my MacBook.

[Kimberly27]

I am facing this dilemma as well but with thousands of photos. My mom passed in January and I took all the photos to scan bc my siblings don't care for the task or the little things I am finding in the many scrapbooks my late grandparents kept. I know who is in some but I also came across photos of my grandfather when he was in the military...1940s...and his family. I never knew him or his side of the family. He passed at 55 unfortunately. I decided to buy a nice scanner and scan them myself (I think I am crazy...LOL)
For the dates I don't know I will probably put in a folder with the approximate year. There are some photos of my mom and a guy she dated when my parents divorced.(we don't need those and I tossed them). My parents got back together but not remarried about 10 years ago. My mom took a lot of photos as did her parents. My grandmother has a whole album she went to Hawaii. I don't know everyone but maybe can reach out to distant family and try to figure it out. I am actually excited to dig into the past and figure out the people in the photos. She also has photos of her second husband's family which I am not sure I will keep those as I don't know them or have talked to them in 20+ years.
So, to answer your question you can get an approximate or put with your MIL birth year.
The people I don't know...I will try to figure out if they are immediate family maybe or just move on if hubby doesn't care. Your kids may care one day to know who their ancestors are and see photos from then.
I love looking at the pics but seeing the stuff in the pics...furniture, buildings, clothing, toys etc. It is fun seeing the past. Good luck! :)

[HavaDrPepper]

I love looking at the pics but seeing the stuff in the pics...furniture, buildings, clothing, toys etc. It is fun seeing the past. Good luck! :)

This is what I love about old photos. I was looking through my childhood photos last week and one photo that I've seen many times caught my eye. I have 2 quilts made by my great-grandmother displayed in my living room. The photo was a picture of my childhood bedroom with bunk beds. The quilts were on the beds! I had never noticed that before. Makes them even more special to me.

When my grandfather died in 1995, my uncle had the job of cleaning out the house. Oldest sister died 2 months later and my mom was unable to help due to her emphysema (she died 1 year after grandpa). My grandparents took lots of photos that were developed as slides. My uncle took all the slides unknown to Mom and I and spent over a year and a half going through them. He pulled out all the slides for the 3 families/grandkids. About 8 months after Mom died, he gave me my slides and told me what he had done. I asked about all the slides of their various vacations over the years. Then he told me that HE THREW THEM OUT! When I told my cousin, she was livid. She taught school and would have loved to use them in her class. I wouldn't doubt that those photos/slides would be welcome by some of the places they visited. I know my town is always on the search for historical photos. Those slides were from the 1940/1950's. And quite a few trips were out west.

Thankfully, Grandpa let me go through the physical photo albums he had in 1994 after I started doing genealogy. He told me to take any photos I wanted. I took a bunch. Good thing. My uncle threw those out as well.

[Cheryl Ashcraft]

I have all my maternal grandmother's photos, and now I'm the custodian of all my mother's photos. My Mama has digital photos as well. I have my own collection of physical photos from before digital cameras, and I need to decide how to deal with those. I've purchased the photo boxes and now I'm stuck at deciding how to go about organizing them. So I'll be watching this thread! LOL

I absolutely love looking at the old photos, especially the backgrounds. I have a photo of my Great Aunt Dolly. She was in her wedding dress in a field, and in the background there is a pig. I don't know why, but it makes for an interesting photos to me!

[tjscraps]

I absolutely love looking at the old photos, especially the backgrounds. I have a photo of my Great Aunt Dolly. She was in her wedding dress in a field, and in the background there is a pig. I don't know why, but it makes for an interesting photos to me!


That reminds me of this picture of my maternal grandma. This is her and half of her siblings - she's in the white dress. I always just thought it was a picture of the siblings - but learned recently it's because they got a power pole that day, and they needed to take a picture with it because that meant they had power for the first time. They didn't take 1000's of pictures like we do, so when the camera came out it was for an occasion!

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/54367926288_bb62ce865b_z.jpg

[kristalund]

I have tons of photos...
my pics before going digital
my childhood pics
my mom's pics and beyond...

I have been following this account on IG looking for inspo: https://www.instagram.com/the.krista.k/

[Cheryl Ashcraft]

That reminds me of this picture of my maternal grandma. This is her and half of her siblings - she's in the white dress. I always just thought it was a picture of the siblings - but learned recently it's because they got a power pole that day, and they needed to take a picture with it because that meant they had power for the first time. They didn't take 1000's of pictures like we do, so when the camera came out it was for an occasion!

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/54367926288_bb62ce865b_z.jpg

Oh my goodness! What a great photo.

I'm thinking "We've Got The Power!" LOL

[bestcee]

Questions for those of you that organize and scan photos -

1 - When you don't know the date, do you guess when organizing it?
If I don't know the date, I try to guess the year or decade. I start by making a timeline: Like, I know my MIL was born in 1948. I know she went to college at 18, right after high school so I know the year is 1966-1970. I have the advantage of being able to narrow years down based on how many siblings she had too. So, I add what year each sibling was born. She only moved a few times in her life - once as a kid, once to college, once to an apartment, and then a house. I knew her when she moved from the house to her place, and that was when we had digital dated photos. I know she went to Germany in 1996. I added in her marriage and years her kids were born. This actually helped me narrow down when a photo was taken a lot! I don't have specific years, but I have an educated guest on a small range or decade.

2 - If I import these into my Mac Photos app the date I scan them will be the date that they show in 'All photos'. If I don't know the date, or if it's old photos of his ancestors, etc. - what would you do? I don't need to see them scrolling through my phone but would love to tag and organize them in the Photos app like all our other photos. I was thinking of maybe changing the date on the old photos of MIL as her birth year so that they're all together but not 'recent' in the albums?
What do you want it to look like? Do you want them to be all in one section? It sounds like having them all at the beginning of your All Photos is what would work for you. As you narrow down dates, you could always change the year later, especially with your husband's photos so he shows up alongside your childhood photos.

3 - Do you scan and keep photos of people you don't know??

Yes and no. Yes, I usually end up scanning them, because it was faster to scan at the time because the photos were unorganized. However, I did toss a few as I was going if I noticed 1) near duplicate. Almost the same photo? Toss one. 2) Bunch of bikers in a race? Keep the one that BIL was in, toss the rest. However, girl scout groups? I scanned it because girl scouts is a huge part of my mother-in-law's story, and even if we don't know the girls, it's a page I'll make for her book. Now that they are scanned? I've deleted some where it's the same troop over and over, and just kept a few of the best ones.

[fruitysuet]

Wow you are all so lucky! I have at the most a couple of dozen photos from my parents house worth keeping - although they did have literally hundreds of scenic photos from their travels, no date or place name. If they didn't include either of my parents I tossed them all.

For older photos I don't try to guess a date, I put them in generalised folders such as heritage Mum, heritage Dad, me pre-school. I work in data though so it would bug me mentally to guess a date knowing it's likely wrong!

As my contemporary photos are in folders by year, any named using alphas automatically sit after those as I sort A-Z so numbers always come first.

There were very few photos and only a couple where I didn't know who the subjects were - yes, I tossed them as now both my parents are dead and I have no siblings or other close family other than my own children, there would be no way of finding out who they were. If we don't know who they are that indicates they aren't important enough to keep. ETA I did keep the ones were I think I know who they are - eg parent's family - but who pre-dated me so I don't actually know. Some of my mum's older photos she did write on the back, eg this is my uncle Ted, so although I don't know anything else about him, that he was important enough for my mum to keep the photo and comment on it, means I kept it.