When my aunt died leaving a box of unmarked photos my cousin and I were able to at least sort out which side of the family the photo represented by which people had ears that stuck out.
Ooh, the ears! My son has a pair of ... very interesting ears, which look like nobody else's and in fact caused a certain amount of nervousness among the doctors who were trying to diagnose his infancy problems (Ehlers-Danlos; nothing to see here, move along). It wasn't until his cousin bore her second son that the EARS re-appeared, and we were able to triangulate on the right mutual family line, and use old photographs to identify the culprit--my father-in-law, who is grandfather to the one and great-grandfather to the other. Such a relief!
Family genetic history is a thing with mannerisms and behaviour also. I met my father's cousin in 2006, my father had met him once in the mid-1970s. Although he spoke German and no English, it was uncanny to watch his movements of hands and face as he spoke. His son also did the same things. The others then pointed out how I also acted the same way.
One that may make it's way into a frame is a huge photograph of my father wifh his parents, grandparents, some aunts, uncles and cousins - about 40 of them in all. Every male under c13 is wearing a sailor suit and the girls all look as if plucked from a shoot of The Railway Children!
This reminds me of a piece of good advice that I was given quite some time ago.
Keep a record of who the people in photos are. If you're an elderly relative (and so know who all the people are), write it down. If you're a younger relative, pester your elderly relatives to identify the people in the photos. Otherwise all the people who remember die, and what you're left with is a "this might be my great grandfather, or maybe his brother, or maybe his uncle."
Re our beautifully presented family photo albums - I pleaded to have names put under the photographs, but never succeeded in motivating anyone to do this. I am soon going to inherit these albums, which will have to be reorganised, and the bulk of the photographs thrown away.
Date them too, of course. I don’t know if my kids will keep my printed photos but I have dated and named them all on the back.
We had a U3A course on photography. He was teaching us how to date old photos.
He reckoned printed photos will last the next 200 years and be the only truly lasting record of family life. Digital photos will have changed format so many times our pen drives/cloud drives/whatever drives storage for our family photos will have long disappeared without trace.
Digital photos will have changed format so many times our pen drives/cloud drives/whatever drives storage for our family photos will have long disappeared without trace.
Yes, and also no.
If you write your jpegs to a CD, or a memory stick, or whatever, and shove it in a drawer, it may well not function when you want to get it out to show your kids, and even if it's theoretically functional, you probably won't own a device that you could plug it in to.
But if you're actually intending to keep records, you transfer the data to new storage media as it becomes available. (And the image formats aren't going away. There's basically no cost associated with remembering how to decode a jpeg.)
Has anyone heard of an "art attack". What they do is have 2 people, one with a picture hook and a small hammer, and the second with a picture. When no-one is looking, quickly put the picture hook in a wall, hang picture, and leave. Probably it is technically a form of vandalism. I may hang some at a community garden (what the UK calls allotments I think), wouldn't have to hide the activity. They may not last in the weather, but under eaves should be reasonable for a summer.
I have left books in waiting rooms and hotels in the past.
Digital photos will have changed format so many times our pen drives/cloud drives/whatever drives storage for our family photos will have long disappeared without trace.
Yes, and also no.
If you write your jpegs to a CD, or a memory stick, or whatever, and shove it in a drawer, it may well not function when you want to get it out to show your kids, and even if it's theoretically functional, you probably won't own a device that you could plug it in to.
But if you're actually intending to keep records, you transfer the data to new storage media as it becomes available. (And the image formats aren't going away. There's basically no cost associated with remembering how to decode a jpeg.)
That’s not what he was saying. He was saying that printed photos left in an attic will be there to be found. A pen drive will too, but in a hundred years the format will have changed so much it may not be recognised as a form of photo storing or the equipment to read it could well be long gone.
I already have CDs of photos and nothing to read them on. I know I could get it done - but it would cost money.
That’s not what he was saying. He was saying that printed photos left in an attic will be there to be found. A pen drive will too, but in a hundred years the format will have changed so much it may not be recognised as a form of photo storing or the equipment to read it could well be long gone.
That's why archiving data is different from archiving stuff. The important bit of the data is the data itself, not the medium that it's stored on. Your data archival plan has to keep moving your data to new media.
I already have CDs of photos and nothing to read them on. I know I could get it done - but it would cost money.
You can buy a USB CD drive for $20, if you don't have an old cd drive kicking around anywhere. Do it, and get the data off those CDs.
But the idea that a USB drive "won't be recognized" in 100 years is nonsense. People today recognize punch cards and 1950s-era reels of magnetic tape as data storage. We'll still recognize them in 30 years time.
Of course, the number of functioning tape machines for a reel of 1950s tape is limited, but...
In my own home I like lots of pictures and paintings on my walls (though funny enough not in my bedroom), so long as each one has a personal story relating to me or family or work. They're sort of half-randomly hung in a deliberate way, but in patterns pleasing to my eye, if nobody else's.
Once I’m kicking up the daisies nobody will be updating my data.
Why not? You leave copies of your photos to your kids, and they incorporate "Mum's photos" in their data archive, and they remain updated alongside your kids' other data.
I inherited/ got landed with thousands of transparencies when my papa died. I've finally bitten the bullet and ordered a viewer thing so I can sort through, make a collection of those I want printed and ditch the rest - so that sorts out my evening entertainment for the next month 😯🥃
I inherited/ got landed with thousands of transparencies when my papa died. I've finally bitten the bullet and ordered a viewer thing so I can sort through, make a collection of those I want printed and ditch the rest - so that sorts out my evening entertainment for the next month 😯🥃
Enjoy - it’s great wandering down memory Lane.
I did that with my Dad’s slides. I did half an hour a day for six months. I scanned the best ones and put them on pen drives for my brothers’ birthdays.
I’ve had a book printed too - see my reasons above. 🙂
Two of the public loos???? I can understand one being there, a shot taken at the start of a new roll of film, but not 2. With all respect, are you learning something about your father?
When my brother and sister cleared out Dad's house, there was about half of a built-in wardrobe full of circular cartridges of slides covering several decades of holidays and other family events. I understand my brother cleared it out, but I'm not sure what happened to them.
There were also video-tapes of every episode of Dad's Army, Sergeant Bilko and practically every detective series you care to name from the 1980s onwards, but they were binned, on the assumption that nobody has VHS recorders any more.
It occurs to me that a certain amount of dating of photographs can be done by studying the clothes and hairstyles - certainly to within 10 or 20 years.
Comments
Re our beautifully presented family photo albums - I pleaded to have names put under the photographs, but never succeeded in motivating anyone to do this. I am soon going to inherit these albums, which will have to be reorganised, and the bulk of the photographs thrown away.
We had a U3A course on photography. He was teaching us how to date old photos.
He reckoned printed photos will last the next 200 years and be the only truly lasting record of family life. Digital photos will have changed format so many times our pen drives/cloud drives/whatever drives storage for our family photos will have long disappeared without trace.
(Currently working my way through various Next Generation Up photo albums.
Decisions Will Have To Be Made!)
Yes, and also no.
If you write your jpegs to a CD, or a memory stick, or whatever, and shove it in a drawer, it may well not function when you want to get it out to show your kids, and even if it's theoretically functional, you probably won't own a device that you could plug it in to.
But if you're actually intending to keep records, you transfer the data to new storage media as it becomes available. (And the image formats aren't going away. There's basically no cost associated with remembering how to decode a jpeg.)
I have left books in waiting rooms and hotels in the past.
That’s not what he was saying. He was saying that printed photos left in an attic will be there to be found. A pen drive will too, but in a hundred years the format will have changed so much it may not be recognised as a form of photo storing or the equipment to read it could well be long gone.
I already have CDs of photos and nothing to read them on. I know I could get it done - but it would cost money.
That's why archiving data is different from archiving stuff. The important bit of the data is the data itself, not the medium that it's stored on. Your data archival plan has to keep moving your data to new media.
You can buy a USB CD drive for $20, if you don't have an old cd drive kicking around anywhere. Do it, and get the data off those CDs.
But the idea that a USB drive "won't be recognized" in 100 years is nonsense. People today recognize punch cards and 1950s-era reels of magnetic tape as data storage. We'll still recognize them in 30 years time.
Of course, the number of functioning tape machines for a reel of 1950s tape is limited, but...
Oooops, LC said it before me -
Once I’m kicking up the daisies nobody will be updating my data. But my printed photos and photo books may survive many 100s of years.
I like the idea.
Why not? You leave copies of your photos to your kids, and they incorporate "Mum's photos" in their data archive, and they remain updated alongside your kids' other data.
Enjoy - it’s great wandering down memory Lane.
I did that with my Dad’s slides. I did half an hour a day for six months. I scanned the best ones and put them on pen drives for my brothers’ birthdays.
I’ve had a book printed too - see my reasons above. 🙂
There were also video-tapes of every episode of Dad's Army, Sergeant Bilko and practically every detective series you care to name from the 1980s onwards, but they were binned, on the assumption that nobody has VHS recorders any more.
It occurs to me that a certain amount of dating of photographs can be done by studying the clothes and hairstyles - certainly to within 10 or 20 years.