How to Archive Family Photos: help for managing digital overload

Do you have a digital mess on your hands? Taken hundreds or thousands of photos that have never seen light beyond a screen? Wish you knew how to manage them, and maybe actually print, share, or create something with them?

For me, the answers are yes, yes, and YES.

Thankfully, help has arrived. Denise May Levenick, aka The Family Curator, has written a wonderful new book called How to Archive Family Photos. It outlines strategies and ideas for changing the way you work with digital images to better be able to find, preserve, and enjoy them. In just a few days, it’s transformed how I manage my digital photo collection.

Lest that seem overwhelming, Levenick offers a piece of advice in the first chapter: start where you are, with your current batch of smartphone or camera photos, and go forward from there. Once you get a workflow established, it’s easier to go back and bring your older files into the fold.

The whole concept that there is a workflow to managing digital images, and that it can be streamlined for efficiency, was an eye-opener for me. Professional photographers call it Digital Asset Management (DAM). It’s a simple seven-step process that covers everything from capturing the image (taking a picture) to editing, exporting, and sharing it. Levenick provides multiple examples of how to create a customized workflow to suit your particular goals and situation.

I've needed a system like this desperately. When I bought my first digital camera, it felt liberating to be able to take hundreds of pictures on a tiny card, rather than 24 shots on a roll of film. I learned to upload them to my computer, where they routinely appeared in My Pictures folder or iPhoto. More recently, I started doing the same thing with images taken on my phone.

And there they’ve sat. Countless images, priceless memories, adrift in a sea of computer files.

Except that’s not the half of it. As a genealogist, I’ve also digitized old cabinet cards, tiny early 20^th century photos, faded mid-century snapshots, and old menus and keepsakes. I’ve taken pictures of tombstones in numerous cemeteries, and made digital copies of probate packets and pension files.

How, then, do I go about creating an organized system out of this jumble of modern events and historical treasures? How do I integrate images captured on my camera, smartphone, and tablet with those imported from my scanner, in such a way that I can quickly find things I want later? And how can I make sure I don’t lose all this stuff as time goes by?

How to Archive Family Photos answers all these questions, along with some I didn't even know to ask. Here are the strategies I’ve been looking for. The book’s straightforward, encouraging approach gave me the incentive and tools to get started on this long-overdue process.

Levenick offers practical advice for every step of the way, including:

• photo management solutions for both PC and Mac users
• file naming and organizing strategies
• online storage and photo sharing options
• equipment for digitizing, preserving, and backing up images
• keys to scanning, organizing, and safely storing heirloom prints

In the final chapters, Levenick explores methods of getting photos out of your files and into a form where they can be enjoyed and appreciated. She explains how to create a variety of simple photo projects, including cards, collages, calendars, scrapbook pages, Facebook cover photos, and home décor. She also discusses many options for creating photo books, as well as smartphone and tablet apps for sharing on the go. I've done a few of these already, and am eager to try more.

For anyone wishing to bring order to a growing digital image collection, gain peace of mind that the collection is securely preserved, and discover ways to share and enjoy favorite pictures, I highly recommend How to Archive Family Photos. It’s a bargain at roughly what I used to pay to get a couple rolls of film developed. I bought my book from Family Tree Magazine's  ShopFamilyTree, and it’s also available on Amazon. There's a Kindle version if you prefer to read electronically.

This is one of those books I know I'll be returning to again and again. It's earned a spot beside my computer, where I can use it to keep refining my workflow and playing with new projects. If you're wrestling with digital image overload, I think you'll find it indispensable, too. 

--Shelley

May's Bounty

What a month this has been! Hot on the heels of the successful Ohio Genealogical Society 2015 Conference, May ushered in a bunch of family highlights. One daughter graduated with her MBA and got engaged a week later; another daughter and her friends spent a fun-filled weekend with us; I helped my mother look for a new house in Florida; and my husband and I took a two-week trip to Ireland and Spain. Now that I’m home and have a chance to catch my breath, I can’t help but feel I’ve been incredibly blessed.

It’s one of those times in life when you can almost feel the pages turning.

Even as I’m busy catching up with mail, laundry, work, and so forth, I want to make sure to preserve the memories of these times. I’ve taken hundreds of pictures and collected a dozen new Irish civil registration records on my mother-in-law’s family. I’ve uploaded all the images to my computer and backed up with Apple’s Time Machine and Mozy, so they’re safe for the moment.

But I want to get those images off my computer and enjoy them, and I want to be able to find and access them ten years from now. Which is why I was thrilled to find the copy I’d ordered of Denise Levenick’s new book, How to Archive Family Photos, waiting in my stack of mail. (You might know Denise through her blog, The Family Curator.) Even though I’m just partway through the book, I’m already getting excited about trying her ideas. This looks like exactly the kind of system I need.

So I’m going to keep reading, and I’ll give you a full review in a few days. And I plan to tell you later about how I obtained those Irish records. I’m also headed to the Institute of Genealogy and Historical Research (IGHR) at Samford University in less than two weeks, which I’m very excited about. Stay tuned—life shows no signs of slowing down!

--Shelley

Is This a Photo of Newel King? #52Ancestors

What family historian doesn’t love a mystery? Of course, it’s nice to solve one from time to time! I’ve been mulling this one around for awhile, and thought I’d reach out to you, my readers, for help.

This unidentified tintype was passed down from my grandmother, Wilma Steele Herrel. Wilma inherited some photos of her King and Steele relatives from her grandmother, Minnie King Steele. As I wrote last week, Minnie was the daughter of Civil War soldier Newel King. I’ve long wondered if he is the man pictured in this tintype.

Tintypes were introduced in 1855 and hit their peak of popularity in the 1860s and early 1870s, in the decade surrounding the Civil War. Gary Clark of PhotoTree.com, who I spoke to at the 2013 FGS Conference in Ft. Wayne, notes on his website that tintypes produced into the early 1860s were usually enclosed in metal cases. But as they became more popular and less expensive, paper sleeves or envelopes replaced the cases. This one looks as though it might have had a case around it at one time. Perhaps someone removed the case in hopes of finding a name or other identification.

Newel King was born 17 January 1838 in Gallia County, Ohio. (1) He would have been 22 years old in 1860. The young man in the tintype looks to be in his twenties to me. The long side hair is a particularly distinctive feature. I’ve noted other men with similar hairstyles in Maureen Taylor’s book, Fashionable Folks Hairstyles 1840-1900. I’ve also found examples of similar cuts on men in the 1860s in the Family Chronicle publications, Dating Old Photographs 1840-1929 and More Dating Old Photographs 1840-1929. The examples seem consistent with a young man about 1860-1865.

My working theory is that this is a photo of Newel King of Gallia County, Ohio, taken before he mustered into service for Co. B, 91st Ohio Volunteer Infantry, in September 1862. The age seems right, the hairstyle seems right, and the type of photograph is definitely right. In addition, there was the added motivation for a young man going off to war to have his picture taken to leave behind with his mother or girlfriend.

Newel King not only survived the war, but lived until 1896, although he suffered from epilepsy and declining health. This means it’s very likely that there’s another photograph of him, somewhere out there (cue to song lyrics now going through my head). A picture might also include his wife, Electa Roush King, and/or children Wesley Berlin King, Curtis Walden King, Minnie L. King Steele, or Bella King Stickelman. If you think you might have one, please get in touch with me and let me know by emailing me at the address under the mailbox in the sidebar or by leaving a comment below. And if you have any tips or thoughts for dating or identifying this tintype, I’d love to hear them. Maybe by working together we can wrap this mystery up!

--Shelley

(1) Ohio Gravestones, database and images (www.ohiogravestones.org: accessed 8 Sep 2010), data and gravestone image for Newel King (1838-1896) and Electa King (1845-1932), contributed by W. A. Anderson on 23 September 2009, citing Gravel Hill Cemetery, Gallia County, Ohio.

© Shelley Ballenger Bishop 2014

This is one of a series of family history stories written for “52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks,” coordinated by Amy Johnson Crow, CG, author of No Story Too Small.

Related Posts:

Newel King, 91st Ohio Volunteer Infantry

Newel King's Testimony for Civil War Pension

Minnie King Steele, the Oldest Ancestor I’ve Known