Organizing Your Family Tree Photographs
Most family tree software now enables you to link your data to digital photographs. It's much more rewarding to view the family tree data when there are faces linked to the names (even if those people tended not to smile for picture-taking).
But keeping track of all those family tree photographs requires a different organization method than what you use for your present-day photographs.
Once you scan a photo, save it into two folders:
JPEG PHOTOS BY SURNAME
JPEG PHOTOS OF FAMILY
JPEG PHOTOS OF SURNAME
This folder contains sub-folders that are labeled by surname.
For example:
Cornwell
Dunn
McNally
...
Modesto
This makes it easy to find all the family members with a particular surname.
JPEG PHOTOS BY FAMILY
No sub-folders for this one. All of the photographs are "loose," which makes it easier to view them as thumbnails and to link to them from your family tree software program.
All of the photographs are listed with the following naming method:
If the picture is of an individual, label it:
[Last Name, First Name, Born Year, Theme/Event]
For example:[Dunn John E born 1875 Obituary]
Note: Having the birth year or some other notation helps when you have 5 people named John Dunn in the family.
If the photo is of a cemetery marker, the name of the cemetery is listed first.
For example:[St Patrick Cath Cem Maple Grove Dunn John b 1875 oss Modesto Elizabeth b 1886]
Note: The abbreviation "oss" means "on the same stone."
This makes it easy to pull up which of the relatives are all buried in a particular cemetery.
You would also create a copy of the photograph and name it for the wife under her maiden name:
For example:[St Patrick Cath Cem Maple Grove Modesto Elizabeth b 1886 oss Dunn John b 1875]
If you are a very thorough person, you can also use the "properties" feature of the file (right-click on the file in Explorer and select the Properties command) to summarize who is in the picture.
Note: For sequences of photos, label the last part of each photo with '1 of 5', '2 of 5', etc. to keep them together.
If you're uncertain how to label a photograph that doesn't include people (such as a farmhouse), use the name of the person you have a blood relationship with.
For example:[Modesto Elizabeth C Dunn John farm aerial view 1 of 5]
[Modesto Elizabeth C Dunn John farm aerial view 2 of 5]
Tip 1: If you're on a quest to have headstone photos of your ancestors, copy the filenames into a word-processing document. Bring it with you on field trips. That way you can quickly check to see if you have a cemetery marker photo or not.
Tip 2: To label photographs of women whose maiden name is unknown, use the following naming method:
[Cornwell, Margaret Mrs. Michael b1799 d1870]
This helps you see right away which women are missing a maiden name. Also, if the name is a common one, identifying the husband's first name helps keep them all straight.
No doubt you'll want to tweak this method to find something that works for you and your family names. But whatever you do, don't forget to back up your photographs!
Mary McCauley-Stiff http://www.genealogy-journey.blogspot.com This electronic photo organization method was generously provided by Jayne M. from Madison, Wisconsin, USA.
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