Why you should label family and travel photos

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.

Recording yourself and your family and colleagues on holidays and business trips

Problems
When my uncle who was a professional musician, died; and I had no photos or recordings or him speaking or playing. At our wedding, my family insisted that the two musicians on both sides of the family should be invited to a meal and not have to perform. The result was that after they died we had not record of them playing, for ourselfves or our children and grandchildren.

At weddings and other important occasions, we were at venues far from work and home and our musicians who were guests did not have musical instruments with them, so even if we had asked them to play, they could not.

When my mother died in her late eighties I had no instant record of her life ready to help me write a quick speech for her funeral.

When my father died a few years I was better prepared. I went through family photos with him and added dates, places and names. I wrote 100 word and 500 word and 1000 word accounts of his life ready for a funeral speech or obituary for a local paper and professional journals. I still had not thought to make a video of him.

Now if I were to organise a wedding for my son I would ask the photographer to ask everybody in the room their name, what they did for a living, the country they were born and where they met their spouse and their advice on life of business.

Answers
Video records.

If you have a musician in the family, make sure you get a recording of them playing. Either go to watch them perform. Or ask them to play just an opening bar.

If they say it's not professional, you caon't play except when being paid, instead ask them to demonstrate their musical instrument and why it's good. Or ask them to teach or deomonstrate to a child in the family. Ask uncle of grandad or auntie or grandma to teach the grandchild. (And pay the going rate or if they won't take money then give them soemthing else they need.) Then ostensibly photogh or video the child, whilst at the same time you will have the video of the adult.

Yourself on video
I often go to events and take photos. I come back with photos and video of others but not myself.

Make sure something of yourself is in the public domain. You cannot expect your family to preserve every photo and old computer. Ensure that something is in the public domain so that it is preserved and can b found.

When you go on a trip, record the family. The recording is most likely to be o f interest and to be kept and passed to others if you say aomthing interesting about the place or the family history.

Place
Ask a family member to describe the place you are visiting on holiday or business and to say how it differed from their expectations. Ask them to describe how the place has changed over the years. Ask them to compare the old parts of the city with the newer and say whether the new parts are an improvement or if they are pleased the older areas have been preserved.

Books of family records which you can buy and fill in by hand. Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.

Family
I was sold a family tree book from the trolley at a maternity ward after I had my baby. In addition to the books which you see in the pictures I have also bought a Grandparent's book which I gave to my father to fill in.

Media and On-line blogs
Nowadays you can make a book from Facebook or a blog dedicated to your family or business and add videos.

Family History
Ask people to describe how they have spent their holidays or business trips and how things have changed.  If you do this even two or three years running you will have an interesting record. If you do it every year for ten or twenty years. you will have a fascinating record for your family and local archives and businesses.

 Your local history society will eventually be interested in the past. They might be interested in recording the present. If you don't have recording equipment, the local history or school might be interested in making a recording of your grandma (with you and grandchildren)  for you.

Similarly, when visiting a foreign venue, you could ask the children and adults and elderly people to tell you how things have changed or whether they are the same - food, activities, transport, business, items they sell, crafts, clothes. household objects.

A lot of shy people don't like to talk about themselves or say they don't look good on camera. However, if you ask them to demisntrate an object, you can photograph them sewing or fishing, or cooking and get them in the picture.

If you make a recording of the grandparent and the grandchild, the boss and the receptionist or post room worker, you will have a quick record to make a speech of thanks for the trip at a farewell business dinner, or a wedding, retirement party or funeral or obituary or your own memoir.

If you make a short video when you start a business, years later you will be able to look back, or show it on your website.

Remember to add thanks verbally or in subtitles at the end, the way they do in the movies.That way you have a reason to send the video to all the participants and ask them to check the spelling of their names is correct.
One of the dangers is that they might decide they don't want the picture of video shown to anybody else. However, if you have your own copy, it will still be useful to you when keeping accurate records of the places or people, or going back to different people a year later.

Just as people can be happy to be recorded, then change their minds, people can withdraw permission, then later change their minds.

A simple short video an later be expanded who you have time. You can add opening credit, closing credits, still of places, a map of the country or local area at the start, music, a diary cover, turning pages, special effects, repeat of the opening photo.

Books
The conventional family history book is a handy reference for everything from your passport number and national insurance number to photos of family weddings, or photocopies of birth certificates, and locks of hair secured in a transparent bag.

Tips
https://www.craftsy.com/painting/classes/expressive-pages-journaling-the-everyday
Family history books for you to fill in can be bought on line.

Author Angela Lansbury. Please share links to your favourite posts.