Problem
The day after my mother died I started going through family photos to find a nice photo of her to display at the funeral, and put on the dining room table for the prayers and meal at home afterwards.
I stayed at my father's home to comfort him and went through my father's photos. He's with my mother and somebody else. "Who's this?" I asked. "Where was this? When was this?"
Dates, Places, People's Names
Some of the photos had nothing written on the back. Others had one word such as Venice, or a date, such as 1999. From the one word, helped by the pictures, he was able to identify many of the photos. From the date, he could identify a place. From a place name, he could identify a date.
He could identify family, friends, and strangers. I added as much detail as I could. "Aunty Carrie? What was her surname? Who was her husband? Your aunty or mother's aunty? Did she have any children?"
If she had children, I wrote the children's names. I might want to call them later, or recognise them on a genealogy site such as Ancestry.
I didn't bother to write childless. I should have done. It would save time searching for possible descendants, who didn't exist.
Writing Carefully
I wrote carefully behind the white frame of each photo, careful not to indent the photo, especially not the faces. When I worked at a photo agency, we typed out the captions and stuck them on the back of photos. You never wrote on the back of a photo. However, with a funeral to arrange, I didn't have time for such neatness.
Now, go back to your family's wedding photos. Add as many names as you can, and dates, and the place where the photo was taken. When you have time, type it all up neatly. Stick the label on the back. Add a caption inside the glass of any framed photo.
If you have just got married, or recently married, type out a label giving the date, the venue, the people in the main wedding photo, and another sheet listing all the guests. Years later you will be saying: "What was the name of the people you used to work with? What were your parents' neighbours called?"
I have an old wedding photo taken in around 1910. I have no idea if it's a family wedding or one they attended. I don't recognize any of my relatives in the picture. I wish they had written the date on the back, and the name of the bride and groom.
I went back through my family history to see who would have married then. The only people were my late mother's parents in 1910. But they are not the couple in the photo.
Now that another ten years have passed, I am starting to wonder whether I had mixed up photos from my family with my husband's. Could it be somebody on his side of the family?
When you write your family history or memoirs, you will want captions in the book, giving the names of every person in the photo, the date and place.
Please label your photos.
You can thank me, later.
Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.
Writer of family histories:
My Secret Life Revealed.
The Mad Musician - a musical by Angela Lansbury.
This is your life Pearl Sharot.
Soup and Sympathy.
The day after my mother died I started going through family photos to find a nice photo of her to display at the funeral, and put on the dining room table for the prayers and meal at home afterwards.
I stayed at my father's home to comfort him and went through my father's photos. He's with my mother and somebody else. "Who's this?" I asked. "Where was this? When was this?"
Dates, Places, People's Names
Some of the photos had nothing written on the back. Others had one word such as Venice, or a date, such as 1999. From the one word, helped by the pictures, he was able to identify many of the photos. From the date, he could identify a place. From a place name, he could identify a date.
He could identify family, friends, and strangers. I added as much detail as I could. "Aunty Carrie? What was her surname? Who was her husband? Your aunty or mother's aunty? Did she have any children?"
If she had children, I wrote the children's names. I might want to call them later, or recognise them on a genealogy site such as Ancestry.
I didn't bother to write childless. I should have done. It would save time searching for possible descendants, who didn't exist.
Writing Carefully
I wrote carefully behind the white frame of each photo, careful not to indent the photo, especially not the faces. When I worked at a photo agency, we typed out the captions and stuck them on the back of photos. You never wrote on the back of a photo. However, with a funeral to arrange, I didn't have time for such neatness.
Now, go back to your family's wedding photos. Add as many names as you can, and dates, and the place where the photo was taken. When you have time, type it all up neatly. Stick the label on the back. Add a caption inside the glass of any framed photo.
If you have just got married, or recently married, type out a label giving the date, the venue, the people in the main wedding photo, and another sheet listing all the guests. Years later you will be saying: "What was the name of the people you used to work with? What were your parents' neighbours called?"
I have an old wedding photo taken in around 1910. I have no idea if it's a family wedding or one they attended. I don't recognize any of my relatives in the picture. I wish they had written the date on the back, and the name of the bride and groom.
I went back through my family history to see who would have married then. The only people were my late mother's parents in 1910. But they are not the couple in the photo.
Now that another ten years have passed, I am starting to wonder whether I had mixed up photos from my family with my husband's. Could it be somebody on his side of the family?
When you write your family history or memoirs, you will want captions in the book, giving the names of every person in the photo, the date and place.
Please label your photos.
You can thank me, later.
Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.
Writer of family histories:
My Secret Life Revealed.
The Mad Musician - a musical by Angela Lansbury.
This is your life Pearl Sharot.
Soup and Sympathy.
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