Why Family Photos Are Important

Family photos and documents are often among a family's most prized possessions because they provide a tangible image link to the past.

At some point in our lives, most of us will come to realize that our lives are more closely connected to generations past, present, and future than we previously appreciated. Connections to our past are important to developing and maintaining a sense of place, a sense of personal and local identity, and often add to our individual sense of purpose and belonging.

Much discussion is currently centered on “social networking”. The family remains our most important and core social network. Shared family experiences, memories, heritage, and often values and interests are reflected in family photo collections and provide a sense of connectedness as well.

A well organized and effectively shared photo collection can promote a clearer understanding of how our family ancestors influenced our thinking, and provide reminders of our personal history and development. A properly organized photo collection allows the next generation to better appreciate these important photo reflections of the past, and can help them to understand their heritage as well.

It was not long ago that most family photos were limited to professional studio portraits. As photography became more affordable and mainstream in the last century, families have routinely captured more images of their family history. Digital technology has now made image transfer and sharing much easier, and online databases are making genealogy research more fruitful than ever before. With the evolution of these tools, developing family histories and coloring that history with photo images has become a growing interest of many families.

Preserving our sense of place and family history is at the heart of why it is important to both preserve and share family photo images. Special family photos and documents simply help us to remember and better understand the uniqueness of our families and our individual journeys.

For more information on organizing, preserving, and sharing of family photos, visit LocalArchiver.com. The above blog is an excerpt from a book being assembled for publication this fall and based on articles at LocalArchiver.com.

Family Photos - Some Organizing Basics

Family photos are not ordinary clutter as they are often a family's most treasured and enduring possessions. However, the steps to getting a family photo collection organized are very similar to steps suggested by professional home organizers to address ordinary clutter throughout the home.

Step 1) Inventory/Assess - Pulling out your photos, slides, albums, scrapbooks, and related items allows you to size the project and can provide some momentum to get started. This may also help you to decide which part of your family image collection to tackle first. Perhaps you decide to set aside a project area to work with just prints and albums, and then put the rest back in the closet for another day.

Step 2) Sort and Cull - The initial sort should be to decide what should be kept and what can be tossed. It can be as difficult to downsize your family photo collection as it is to get rid of clothes that no longer fit in your closet. It is likely that your collection contains some photos that add little value to your collection, and probably should have been eliminated when you had the prints developed or downloaded. Among multiple shots of the same events or subject, there are often just a few true "keepers". Sorting and culling will make the next steps more manageable, and allow you to focus your activities on the best images in your collection. This will also reduce the expense associated with storing, displaying, and sharing your images.

Step 3) Organize - The goal of organizing prints, slides, digital image files, and other image formats is similar in that the ultimate objective is to be able to easily locate an image when you go looking for it. This requires some thought about categories and a filing system. Dates, subjects, events, places, and family are some of the common organization categories. At one extreme, the organization may be as simple as prints sorted by decades. At the other extreme, a consolidated and properly captioned digital image library provides the ability to search and sort images by keywords reflecting who, what, where, when, and why.

Step 4) Contain and Store - Archival quality albums, sleeves, and boxes will help to extend the useful life of originals and protect them from harmful environmental factors such as dust, light, and accelerated chemical related deterioration. Digital images can be stored in a variety of ways and distributed more widely to extended family. When storing, one should think about the best way to backup the collection. If you have a digital library, duplicate files can be shared with other family members and placed in a safe deposit box. If you have important one-of-a-kind prints with no duplicates, consider having a few of the best prints scanned and keep the digital files at a second location and share them with extended family.

Step 5) Keep It Up - Once you are organized, add new images to the organization system you have developed. It is a good habit to cull low interest/value images as you see them, and to simply apply your organization scheme to the best ones.

For more thoughts on organizing family photo collections and to find Tips for Sorting and Culling, visit the Organizing Section at LocalArchiver.com. For a discussion of scanning considerations, visit the Scanning Section, and for storage and containment supplies, visit the Preservation Resources Section.

Family History and Social Networking

Now that LocalArchiver.com has a page at facebook, I feel a bit more confident in sharing some thoughts about the draw of social networking.

Most social groupings/networks are based on things we have in common. To name a few, these may include such things as ancestors, experiences, interests, nationalities, or sets of beliefs about religion or politics.

Social networking begins for most of us as children within a family, and an extended family often shares some common beliefs and interests.

Although social networks such as facebook reflect an incredibly wide range of interests, family plays a meaningful part in the selection of mutual "friends", and in other ways such as genealogy networking and research.

A wide interest in family and community history is in part based on a sensed need to understand how we came to be who we are today. This sense of identify is tied to sense of place, sense of purpose, and sense of belonging. Family and community is where much of this begins.

Many recognize that family photos are a big part of how family history can be captured, understood, and shared. A well organized and easily shared photo collection, either prints or digital files, can help you to stay connected to family, both present and past. This is why so many family historians seek information about how to organize, preserve, and share images of family.

I hope you Find Us at Facebook and join the discussions to share ideas there, and that you find the information you may seek about organizing and sharing family photos at the LocalArchiver.com website.

Organizing Family Photos - Step One

Whether you recently inherited a relative's collection or have simply accumulated a large quantity of your own photo prints or digital image files, the thought of starting a collection organizing project can be very humbling.

The key is to think big picture and just get started. No one says you have to complete the project in a single sitting. It can also help to stay focused on how important your photo collection is to you, and can perhaps be to your descendants.

Step One - Sort and Eliminate

Every photo organizing project, whether paper prints or digital files, can benefit from some thoughtful sorting and culling. It is a rare person who has not saved some really bad photos. Photos are often really hard to toss. However, the truth is that some photos do not deserve the space they take up in the shoebox.

In most cases, we would do well to get rid of the poorest shots of the same event or subject and simply treasure the best ones. With the passage of time, many photos simply lose subject value. Perhaps you want to keep some of the best pictures of your high school friends, but if you have not exchanged xmas cards for thirty years and live on the other side of the country, most can probably go or stay in the shoebox for your children to toss. My family had taken a ton of pictures over the years, and our thoughtful sorting and culling of both prints and digital files about a year ago resulted in eliminating well over half of the collection.

Subsequent steps in the organizing project became much easier, and less costly, with a more manageable number of prints and digital files.

Sorting and culling your collection may be all the motivation you need to keep going. Seeing all the wonderful and important photos remaining in your collection should bring a smile to your face and encourage you to take additional steps in organizing and sharing your collection. You will also have done a big favor to whoever may inherit your collection one day.

In a future blog, I will make suggestions about how to categorize and label both prints and digital files.

For more suggestions on organizing photo collections, visit the Organizing section at LocalArchiver.com

Family History and Photo Organizing and Sharing

Connections to our past are important to developing and maintaining our sense of place, a sense of personal and local identity, and often add to our individual sense of purpose.

A well organized and shared family history and photo collection are one of the most tangible ways of staying connected to our past.

LocalArchiver.com now has a page at Facebook. In addition to receiving blog feeds, the page includes discussion boards and posting by others interested in family history and preserving, organizing, and sharing photos. The discussion boards are organized around several related topics.

In just a few days, the "Fan" base has grown rapidly. This helps me to know that folks are finding the information useful.

I hope the discussion boards grow into a full and rich dialogue among the many, many non-professional family photo preservationists who seek advice and/or have advice to offer.

Approaches to preserving, organizing and sharing is not an exact science, so it is expected that we can all learn from the experiences and knowledge of others.

Find Us on Facebook, and start or join a discussion.

We also invite you to explore the many articles at the main LocalArchiver.com website relative to managing photo collections.

Family History Month - Genealogy Research Service Free Trials

Both interest in genealogy and the sophistication of available research tools continue to expand.

As more record databases become available to be searched via the Internet, subscription genealogy information search services have become more productive. At the same time, these services have become much easier to use, and many have begun to use software to automatically identify links in database information that were difficult for individual researchers to make in the past.

Family History Month is a good time to consider exploring some of these online services. Two of the most widely used subscription services offer free trial periods of 7 to 14 days. To make the most of your free trial periods, sign up when you know that you will have some time available to adequately explore the services to see how productive they might be for your family.

Two of the leading genealogy research services are Ancestry.com and OneGreatFamily. Both offer free trial periods to give you the opportunity to explore their databases and overall research capabilities. After the trial, if you are happy with the progress you make relative to your family's history, you can decide on exactly how long you would like to extend your subscription. Both services offer monthly, quarterly, and annual subscriptions.

Many of the emails I receive about sharing and preserving family photos and documents are from people who have taken an interest in a family genealogy project. They often come to realize that family photos and documents add considerable color to raw name and date facts. In many cases, they quickly recognize that organizing, preserving, and sharing historical family photo and document finds is important to their overall satisfaction in the project and in coloring and preserving the rich family information they are gathering.

For more information on organizing, preserving, and sharing historical family photos and documents, visit LocalArchiver.com

Family Photos and Family History Month

Around the country many celebrate October as Family History Month.

What better way to celebrate than by dragging out some of those neglected shoe boxes, drawers, and old albums full of photos reflecting your family history.

Family photos are often the most tangible images we have of our family history.

Our sense of place and personal identity are often reflected in these family photos.

With many children back in school and before the hectic holiday season is upon us, this is also a good time to start a project to better identify, organize, and cull these family photo images. This project does not have to be completed in one sitting, and any progress made is a good thing.

Family photo organizing projects can be very intimidating. However, once started, most people will find that any progress will feel good, and that momentum can easily build.

Once some decent progress is made in identifying, culling, and organizing old prints, you are on the path to many creative image sharing opportunities using online digital image services.

Celebrate family history month by bringing out the old family photos and walking down memory lane with the rest of the family. Before you put the photos back where you store them, take some time to identify, cull, and organize at least a few. You will be happy you did.

For tips on culling, organizing, and sharing family photos, visit LocalArchiver.com.

Organizing Family Photos - Getting Started

Most people will admit to the need and desire to get their family photos under better control. Many will also admit to being overwhelmed by the thought of such a project.

This sense of need for better photo organization is often based on a desire to more broadly share our photo images with friends and extended family. If only we had our photos better organized, we could produce those impressive photo books, collage posters, and image based holiday and greeting cards we have seen our friends make. Still many are paralyzed at the thought of organizing, scanning, and labeling all those images that have been accumulated in boxes and on our hard drives.

Complicating the task, and another cause for procrastination, are the challenges of learning about ways to combine family photo collections that include prints, digital files, and in many cases slides and perhaps video film.

The key to making progress is to simply get started. This process is a bit like going to the dentist. It is not likely to hurt as much as you fear, and just think about how good you will feel when you have the project behind you.

Three key organizing tips to keep in mind.

1.) Eliminate Images that Hold Little Value - It is likely that much of what you have collected over time has lost much of it's importance. We tend to keep all the photos taken at a particular event even though some are clearly better than others. Remember that the memory of the event is normally more important than any one particular image. With the passage of time, perhaps one good photo of your first car is plenty. Likewise, unless you married your prom date, with the passage of time, the prom photo has clearly become less important.

If you start your organizing project by eliminating images that are truly bad and/or have little present value to your collection, it becomes a much easier task to properly cherish, organize, and share the best and most highly valued images that remain. If you head into the project with the intent of applying the 80/20 rule, you will likely find that 20% of the images hold 80% of the interest/value or that perhaps only 20% of the images actually deserve to be organized and shared.

2.) There is Considerable Help Available - Driven largely by the evolution of digital technology, it has recently become much easier to creatively organize and share family photo images. A good first step is to consolidate print and digital collections . Once family photo images are in digital file format, it becomes quite easy to accomplish many family photo sharing projects at home or online. Family photo history books, custom greeting and holiday cards, photo collages and posters, and spectacular family photo wall groupings are only a few clicks away with the help of sophisticated online services.

In order to create your consolidated digital family photo collection, it is possible to have your prints scanned professionally at a reasonable cost. Simply place prints of varied sizes into a provided envelop or box and send them off to be scanned and returned. Visit ScanDigital and/or ScanCafe to preview and try their services.

3.) Any Step is a Good Step - Take a moment to think about how you might feel if your photo collection is lost in a disaster or simply becomes a burden to whoever may ultimately tidy up your estate.

You do not need to complete the entire project all at once. It may be best to simply grab one of several boxes of family photo prints or one deteriorating album and organize these images. Perhaps send out one of several potential batches of prints to be scanned in order to take a positive step and to see how the service works. If you do not have the time to start a large project, make it a series of smaller projects.
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For more tips and suggestions, read Tips for Sorting and Culling Photos and Documents at LocalArchiver.com

Organizing Family Photos - Hysterical Preservation and the 80/20 Rule

With limited time and budgets, families and others hoping to preserve a historical heritage in photos and documents often have a difficult time drawing the line between what is important to preserve and what can be preserved.

Many preservationists have been referred to as "hysterical preservationists" when they appear to take the position that most or all things historic should be preserved. The "hysterical " approach is often criticized as spreading resources and attention too thin, to the detriment of truly special and unique objects of historical significance.

I believe that the same debate can be applied to family photo and document collections. If a collection consists of boxes of photos or "keepsakes" in an attic, there is a decent probability that someone named in your will could be even less motivated to sort and cull the image collection than you are.

On the other hand, if you approach a culling and organizing project as an application of the 80/20 rule, it is much easier to make some decisions and real progress. In a recent culling project of family photos around our house, we tossed about 80% by volume of our old prints.

We determined that uniqueness and mediocrity were the most obvious criteria. We simply decided that we did not need to keep all of the mediocre shots of a trip to the Grand Canyon in 1975. A couple of the better shots of us with the canyon in the background were sufficient to recall a memorable trip in our younger years. Likewise, multiple shots of a young child in a Halloween costume could be easily reduced to the single best shot.

Uniqueness and historical significance can also be measured differently over time. Historical photos of people may only have had significance to the people in the picture at the time. If people in a picture were engaged in some activity that has historical significance, perhaps the activity is the uniqueness to future generations.

In any case, the person who is culling, sorting, and organizing images is likely the person most qualified to judge uniqueness and historical significance. Keep in mind that you are not just sorting and organizing the collection for yourself, you are also helping those who will inherit the images in the future.

If based on the best judgement of the sorter, roughly 20% of the collection ends up properly sorted, organized, and captioned, the most unique and historically significant photos and documents are much more likely to survive and be shared into the next generation.

For more suggestions on culling and organizing photo and document collections, see the article on Organizing Photo and Document Collections.

Preserving Family Photos and Documents - Archival Paper Basics

Understanding the basic archival qualities of paper is useful in understanding how long a family photo or document might last, and to better select proper paper storage products.

Most paper produced since the late 1800s has been produced using wood pulp, an inherently acidic material. The quality of paper made from wood pulp often equates to how many steps are taken in the manufacturing process to reduce the acidity of the paper and to improve the chemical stability of better quality papers.

This is why we see rapid deterioration of cheaper paper materials such as newsprint, which remains highly acidic. This rapid deterioration is the result of chemical reactions, which are accelerated by light, heat, and humidity.

There are some labeling terms often used with paper products, which provide clues to the appropriateness of using paper for archival storage purposes.

Be cautious as you see these terms, as suppliers' definitions of archival qualities vary. In any case, if you can become satisfied that paper being used for reproductions and storage are chemically stable, your preservation efforts are improved.

pH Balanced - A chemically neutral paper is typically described as pH balanced. This paper will have a pH between 7.5 and 10. A pH of 7.5 is often referred to as "balanced" and a pH of 10 is often associated with "archival".

Buffered - Paper is referred to as buffered when it is manufactured to contain a small amount of Calcium Carbonate to act as a barrier to acid contamination. The calcium carbonate is typically in the range of 2%.

Acid Free - The term acid free is used to suggest a very low acidic content. In paper content descriptions, this is often denoted as the % of lignin content. Lignin is an acidic compound present in wood. Therefore, a very low lignin content percentage is indicative of a low acid content, and is often described as acid free.

Archival - Materials are best described as archival when the pH approaches 10, and lignin is not present. However, you may see materials described as archival when pH is above 7.5, only small percentages of lignin are present, and materials are buffered.

Although many products sold through mass marketers are labeled archival or such, the best way to be certain of labeling is to buy from sources that are experienced with these materials. Dick Blick Art Materials has a dedicated archival materials department and Archival Methods provides a broad range of archival storage products, and provides custom solutions as well.

Many Benefits to Sharing Family and Community Historical Society Photos Online

The ability to share on the Internet is a powerful thing. Images, ideas, news, music, product information, and you name it.

A meaningful opportunity for families is to easily unlock the sharing potential of the many photos now being held by a single family member in a shoebox, dresser drawer, or traditional album or scrapbook. By digitizing these closely held images and placing them online, the extended family can share, print, and download the digital files for their own creative project purposes.

The images can be easily shared by distant family members as a basis for gathering image identification information and genealogical color. The act of sharing online can reveal a particular family member's interest in coordinating an effort to better organize a family tree and the history around it. For more online family image sharing ideas and thoughts, read the article Sharing Possibilities Expand with Digital Images at LocalArchiver.com.

Community historical and genealogical societies have similar opportunities by developing or expanding their online image sharing activities. Placing images online clearly expands the viewing potential and can help the society meet its community history education objectives, generate additional interest in society activities, boost membership interest, and likely help in fundraising activities.

For additional ideas and guides to scanning, preserving, and sharing photos and documents, visit LocalArchiver.com.

Protecting Treasured Images - Family and Historical Society Photo Preservation

When famed photographer Ansel Adams was once asked which of his wife or his negatives he would first save from a burning house, his reply was thoughtful. "My wife, she could help me get the negs out!"

Ansel had a plan, and the rest of us should as well. Many families and community historical societies could do a much better job in planning to protect against a disaster. A bit of thoughtful disaster planning can also help to develop overall preservation and sharing priorities.

A logical first step is to develop a good sense of what you have in your collection. Although a worthy goal, I am not necessarily suggesting a complete assessment and cataloging. Rather, a rough idea of what categories are located where.

The next step is to visualize the potential pain associated with the loss of certain categories, and then develop a plan to best protect these most important categories. Perhaps your historical society has certain categories that best reflect your mission. Perhaps family photos of the immediate family are deemed more important than high school yearbooks and other memorabilia.

Thinking about what would be most tragic to lose can help you to develop priorities and a plan to protect your most treasured images. Developing priorities is important to many families and community historical societies as they must allocate limited time and budgets.

In many cases, there are things that can be done quickly and inexpensively to protect at least a portion of a collection. If a family or historical society has a portion of their collection already in digital format, an easy protective step is to duplicate the files to a CD, DVD, or memory stick, and to place the backups off premise with a family relative, society officer, or in a safe deposit box.

When considering priorities, it is also important to remember that the "importance" and "quality" of images do vary. If an image simply does not "speak" to us any longer, it should probably be assigned a lower priority in our preservation activities.

Giving some honest thought to what you would miss most in your image collection in the event of a calamity and total loss will help you prioritize your preservation and collection activities, and better understand where you should focus your energy, time, and money in photo and document preservation and sharing activities.

Like most things in life, it may be that the 80/20 rule can be applied to image preservation and sharing. Perhaps roughly 20% of your collection deserves 80% of your efforts, and 80% of the audience for the images is most interested in roughly 20% of the collection.

In a recent culling and scanning project of our family's photo prints, we eliminated about 80% by weight and feel pretty good about it. It was interesting that my wife did the first cull, and I did a secondary review of eliminated prints. In each and every case, when I had a question about keeping a print she had eliminated, she was able to quickly produce a better print of the related person, place, or event. Indeed, we only needed the best family reunion group photo from ten years ago, not all ten photos taken at the time.

Prints that remain have been scanned, duplicate CDs are in the safe deposit box, and digital images are being shared in a variety of ways. We do have the originals stored in archival boxes, but take considerable comfort in knowing that duplicate images are always available and have been shared more widely.

For additional tips on preservation and sharing activities for families and historical or genealogical societies, visit LocalArchiver.com.

Photo Preservation and Sharing Life's Little Pleasures

When we consider why photos in our family or community image collections are so important and cherished, a common thread appears.

Most family photo images are captured to document life's milestones, celebrations, social gatherings, and accomplishments. These include births, birthdays, graduations, holidays, family gatherings, vacations, and special recognitions.

In the case of community historical societies, the most treasured images are often of "simpler times". This historical record of a community at work and play might include images of local industry, community organizations, fairs, dances, and local recreational interests.

These images taken together represent a photographic history of family and community. Family, historical society, and genealogical society collections speak volumes about our family and community past. These images form a foundation of our collective memories and identities.

As we approach the summer season, we anticipate parades, family vacations, reunions, visits from distant relatives, picnics, and many other fair weather activities. A good time to sample life's little pleasures with family and community.

Be sure to keep a camera close at hand to preserve and share memories of these simple pleasures, just as our ancestors did.

Discover more about photo and document preservation and sharing at LocalArchiver.com.

Photo Preservation and Sharing - Any Step is a Good Step

Families and volunteer dependent community historical societies can easily become overwhelmed with the range of photo and document image preservation and sharing possibilities. Technology and the Internet have fostered many competitive services all willing to help you store, preserve, and showcase photo and document collections.

At the same time, professional curators and archivists are scrambling to keep up with the growing volume of materials to preserve, and the setting of standards that will make it possible to globally share all of this information.

Professionals who are being paid to find ways to connect their collection to a global network of libraries and museums must be mindful of the avalanche of information. Non-professionals are often simply blinded by this volume of information about what can and should be done.

Non-professionals simply do not have the time, money, tools, or training to undertake preservation projects in the same way as paid professionals in a library or museum preservation department.

Therefore, families and community historical society volunteers should become comfortable that any step toward preserving and sharing photos or documents in their collections is a good step.

Volunteers and families can accomplish much by starting small and taking modest steps by using inexpensive and readily available services to preserve and share their most treasured images. A worthy objective may be to digitize and index an entire collection. However, simply finding 25 or so treasured family or community images and sharing them with a broader audience on a free share site will provide meaningful enjoyment to all involved.

Organizing Family Photos

As I poke around the Internet, I see plenty of advice on how to organize older photo prints. Clearly, this is a personal decision and any step that helps you locate a picture and improves storage/organization is useful. Common suggestions are to place the prints in archival quality storage containers by date or to organize the prints in albums or scrapbooks. Fine suggestions and viable alternatives.

However, if you want to supercharge your ability to preserve, locate, and share images, digitizing the prints by scanning before properly storing them will increase your near and long term flexibility tremendously. You do not necessarily need to scan the prints yourself as there are professional scanning services that can do the job for you at a reasaonable price.

With older prints available as digital images, you can consolidate your image collection with your more recent photos, which you likely already have in digital format.

Now the fun begins. As online image services continue to expand and become easier to use, you can accomplish many satisfying and creative projects easily and inexpensively.

• Upload some of the digital images to a free online album so that extended family members can order prints or gift items of the images.


• Create a free family share site for family members to share images, schedules, ideas, favorite links, genealogical updates, recipes, etc.


• Upload some themed images and add captions and text to create a photo book of a family trip or a portion of family history to mark a significant birthday.


• Take those digital images and organize them using software like Photoshop Elements. With such software, you can create your own album categories and searchable keywords or "tags". Now you have a searchable digital image library and you are able to find all photos of uncle Pete simply by typing Pete into the search field. You can also find all photos in a given category such as "ancestors", simply by clicking on the category name.

Yes, there is a cost in having photos scanned professionally or in time to do it yourself. However, those old prints are probably one of the most valuable things you own. If you are planning to organize your older prints, the added step of digitizing them is one that will provide you many aditional ways to share the images in the future.

For detailed guides on how to scan, organize, and share family photo and document images, pay a visit to LocalArchiver.com.

Genealogical & Historical Societies - Common Interests

It is interesting to explore the websites of organizations which have titled themselves as either genealogical societies or historical societies. Such titles often distinguish the emphasis of their activities. However, many of their objectives and interests are similar.

Although some genealogical societies limit their activities to helping individuals trace family lineages, many move beyond the family tree to family history. Once a society includes family history in its objectives, it is difficult to ignore how community history and family history become a common interest.

Sense of place, sense of community, and sense of personal identity are clearly related. The character, values, and legacy of many of our ancestors was very much shaped by the history of the communities in which they lived and raised there families.

For these reasons, many members of community historical societies have an interest in family genealogy projects, and many members of genealogical societies have a strong interest in community history.

It should not be a surprise that the mission statements and projects of many genealogical societies and historical societies reflect this common interest in family and community history.

Therefore, LocalArchiver's guides to preserving and sharing family and historical society photo and document collections are also guides to preserving and sharing family and community histories. For more color, see the LocalArchiver.com article on The Importance of Preserving Historical Photos and Documents.