I found it interesting that four of Legacy Family Tree’s top 10 webinars of 2016 revolved around photography (Dating Family Photographs – 1900-1940 by Jane Neff Rollins; Enriching Your Family History through Pictures and Stories by Amie Bowser Tennant; Scrapbooking & Journaling for Family History by Amie Bowser Tennant; and Share, Store, and Save Your Family Photos by Maureen Taylor). I guess you could even make a case that a fifth one also involves photos (Crowdsourcing with Social Media to Overcome Brick Walls in Genealogy Research by Amie Bowser Tennant) since FaceBook and Pinterest are valuable genealogical tools to find photos.
I love discovering photos and when I perform Client work I try to add them to a project. Staring into the eyes of an ancestor elicits emotions like no other item can!
So, that’s why I’m worried about the present habits we have developed (no pun intended!) regarding preserving our photos. Our smart phones and other devices have made preserving memories incredibly quick, easy and inexpensive. I use my phone’s camera for recording anything I want to refer back to, such as a whiteboard that was used during a brainstorm session in a meeting, two garments I might purchase to see which would better match the shoes I left at home, and of course, family events. I take more photos now than at any earlier stages of my life. I also have a horrible habit of not preserving those photos I take.
As I walk throughout my home I noticed that most of the framed photos I have on display were taken by a professional. Back in the day, having a photograph made was an event in and of itself. First you had to find the studio, then book an appointment, make sure everyone was dressed and ready to go and finally, return days later to view the proofs to select which you wanted to purchase. Another trip was necessary to pick up the final product. No wonder most of those photos are still around. So much time, effort and cost was involved the photo was determined to be valuable.
Today, not at all. Snap, click, delete if it wasn’t to everyone’s liking or share if it was. We don’t print out photos like we did in the past. Right after the “Years of the Hurricanes” in Florida in the early 2000’s I would have said it was a blessing not to have more photos to lug during an evacuation. CD and Cloud technology seemed like such a great idea. It was the hurricanes that forced me to scan and save my family’s photos – those from the 1800’s to the recent scrapbooks I had created as my children grew up. I thought I was being so smart when I saved to CD’s and gave them out as Christmas gifts to various relatives. My thought was to spread them around to increase the likelihood that they would be preserved. Have a wildfire in California or a twister in the Midwest? No worries, the CD will live on in New England. I never thought about CD’s going away or family members who misplaced them.
When Cloud technology came out I simply transferred everything online. How convenient to be able to access those photos from anywhere! But the program I used, Picassa, became defunct. So I transferred them to Google Photos and Dropbox and Ancestry.
It just hit me I’ve preserved the past but not the present. I’m not saving my current photos at the rate that I did before. Our family’s Thanksgiving pics are still in my phone, along with birthdays and other events I’ve recently attended.
Just as I calendar in a monthly day to download my gedcom from Ancestry to save to software (Legacy and RootsMagic7) on my hard drive, a stand alone hard drive and in the Cloud (Dropbox) I need to also be saving my pics. Yes, I am paranoid but I’ve invested so much time I would be heartsick if all of those were lost.
What I need to do is to get in the habit of cleaning out the photos and preserving them. My plan is to delete those that didn’t come out well and send those I want to keep to my computer. I’ll back those up like I do the gedcom. This is being added to my New Year’s Resolutions!
