* Naming and organising digital copies of old photos

[Peter Collier]

I have acquired an enormous pile of old family photographs which I need to digitise. Once I've done that, I intend to add them into my FH project. While I have many image files in my project - BMD certificates, census returns, and so on - I have so far never actually added any photos!

I like to keep my files logically named and my folders as organised as possible. With the media files I have added so far that has been easy: the'yre easy to categorise and there's usually a definite date, and/or a key person etc. Photos are a completely different kettle fish: often undated, more than one person (or family even), and so on.

I can add plenty of information to the files' metadata, of course, but I want a consistent system for naming and organising the files. So I'm thinking ahead about how best to set about it and I'm looking for a little inspiration. How do you name and organise your digital copies of photos, if indeed you do?

[tatewise]

I identify the key person in the photo, which is easy if only one person. I use Surname-first style like the Records Window.
If more than one, then choose say the groom in wedding photos, or the head of household in other group photos.
Then add any Date if available and perhaps a summary description such as Wedding Group, Graduation Ceremony, etc.
I make the Media record and Filename the same and keep all photos in one Media subfolder.
e.g. SMITH, John 1900 Wedding Group

Notes and Captions for the Media help identify them further.

[LornaCraig]

I have sub folders within the media folder for the main branches (‘Photos Smith Ancestors', ‘Photos Roberts Ancestors’, etc) plus another sub folder for ‘Photos Joint family’ which holds more recent photos of people or groups from after the point at which the main branches merge. Within each sub folder I use a numbering system, for example ‘A01 John Smith 1894’, ‘A02 John and Mary Smith 1910’, ‘A03 Smith family group approx1915’… ‘B01 James Brown (boy)’, ‘B02 James Brown 1895’ etc where the prefixes A, B etc keep the family sub-branches roughly together. Obviously it’s not perfect and if I later acquire extra photos I end up squeezing them in with names like ‘B01.5…’ ‘B01.6…’

[ADC65]

I currently have about 1,000 photographs that I have processed and entered into FH7, and probably about another 1,000 photographs waiting to be organised. In general, I follow the same principles as Mike does in his post above, with a few tweaks. In my experience, you will need to be a bit flexible as whatever system you end up using will never cover every eventuality without a lot of complexity in the titles.

1. I start each title with "Photo - " - this helps my eye when looking through Media records in FH.
2. Pick a primary person from the photo and use that in the format "Surname, Forename(s)". I tend to use women's birth names rather than married names, regardless of what their name was at the time of the photo. If there is likely to be confusion, I will describe who in the photo description in FH7.
3. If there is one other person in the photo I usually add them in the title as well - "& Surname, Forename(s)"
4. If there are multiple people, I try to describe who, or what the occasion is - "& Sisters", "& Family", "Wedding", etc.
5. I add a number to make the name unique, "01", "02", etc.
6. Keep the media title and the file name the same.

I don't generally add a date/year into the title as some photos are too difficult to guess with a degree of accuracy that makes adding the year misleading (I will do this in the metadata or photo description).

I do not use many subfolders - I used to, but it made deciding which folder to use, and which level to split on sometimes a headache for not much payback. So I tend to use just "Family Photos" for very close relatives (grandparents and descendants and direct line ancestors) and "Family History Photos" for more far-flung relatives. I do have a Weddings subfolder, also divided itself, where I keep photos that have been scanned from an entire wedding album, but I tend not to upload each one of these to FH7 anyway. I also have a "Car Park" folder where I put any photos I can't identify or need more work.

Some examples:

Code: Select all

Photo - Bradford, Cecilia Mary 01
Photo - Bradford, Cecilia Mary 02
Photo - Bradford, Cecilia & Summers, Clifford 05
Photo - Hynam, Florence & Hodge, Frederick Wedding 01
Photo - Summers, Kenneth & Family 03

[Frankie1966]

Good question. I name photos very similarly to Mike. Main person, then I wouldn't add more than a second name:

SMITH, John b. 1888 - 1905 Photograph
SMITH, John b. 1888 and JONES, Jane, b. 1888 - 1905 Photograph
SMITH, John b. 1888 (and family) - 1905 Photograph
SMITH, John b. 1888 - Undated Photograph
SMITH, John b. 1888 - c. 1905 Photograph

All my photos are saved to the same folders as other Media. I don't feel the need for very many folders as Search is good for finding (so long as you keep consistent naming) and/or easy to find in FH.

[Gowermick]

I give everyone a custom ID, and start each filename with this.
Eg.
J00234ab John Smith Wedding 1905
J00445ac Christening entry for Rebecca Long

Using a unique custom ID means I don’t have to further identify which John Smith or Rebecca Long I’m referring to. It works for all files relating to the individual, whether it be Service records, Parish Register entries, BMD certificates, School admission entry etc etc

[ADC65]

I give everyone a custom ID, and start each filename with this.

Do you use the FH ID for the person Mike, or assign your own? If you assign your own, how do you keep track of who is who? I use your method for documents, but not photos (I use the FH user ID rather than assigning my own).

I add the user IDs into the file metadata tags for photos, and add a tag for every person in the photo that I have an ID for. This makes them easy to search in windows file explorer. It can also help in other applications, for example, Flickr. I have written some SQL which creates Albums in TNG automatically based on these tags too, so they can be very useful and portable.

Screenshot 2023-01-11 113845.jpg (58.07 KiB) Viewed 1295 times

[Gowermick]

Adrian,
I’m reluctant to use FH ID, as I don’t control it, and worry it may change outside my control, and is completely arbitrary.
I assign a custom ID to every person I enter into my tree. The ID is based on the ahnentafel number (AN) of the individual, relative to the root of my tree.
I start by assigning a Custom ID to all the Direct ancestors using their AN, (with a J prefix to stop it being trated as a number).
I then work down the tree, giving each non direct ancestor, the ID of their father (or mother if illegitimate), with a suffix letter added.
Then I add an ID to all the spouses, by using their spouse’s ID suffixed by \1, \ 2 etc..
The benefit of the scheme, is that I can tell at a glance how they are related to my root, and quickly navigate back up to a direct ancestor, then down to my root

E.g. J000346abc\2, is the 2nd spouse of J00346abc, who is a child of J00346ab, who in turn is a child of J00346a who is child of J00346, a direct ancestor of my root with an AN of 346. Simples

[tatewise]

As Mike says, the FH Record ID could change. Tools > Record Identifiers... can change it.
Also, if you ever Merge two Projects then the FH Record ID of one of those Projects get reassigned.

[ADC65]

E.g. J000346abc\2, is the 2nd spouse of J00346abc, who is a child of J00346ab, who in turn is a child of J00346a who is child of J00346, a direct ancestor of my root with an AN of 346. Simples

Clever! I hadn't thought about doing it that way.

As Mike says, the FH Record ID could change. Tools > Record Identifiers... can change it.
Also, if you ever Merge two Projects then the FH Record ID of one of those Projects get reassigned.

You're right of course, but I learned 20-odd years ago not to change IDs, ever! I don't have separate Projects myself and can't see me doing so, but it is something for those that do have them to consider.

[Peter Collier]

E.g. J000346abc\2, is the 2nd spouse of J00346abc, who is a child of J00346ab, who in turn is a child of J00346a who is child of J00346, a direct ancestor of my root with an AN of 346. Simples

Nifty!

How do you handle orphans? Not in the literal sense, but rather people whose relationship you can't pin down precisely, e.g. when you know the grandparents of an individual but not the specific parents?

[victor]

I have placed all my photos under a subfolder names 'family information' under this folder I have arranged several subfolders for each surname and undewr each surname subfolder is a list of other subfolders for each Christian name. All photos are saved in the appropriate named folder. In addition to these names I have census and BMD certificates.
When I work on FH I import the image from the appropriate sub folder

eg.
Main Folder
Family information
sub folder
Markham
followed by another subfolder
Victor Markham
All photos and other images of me are placed in the folder under my name

Victor

[Gowermick]

E.g. J000346abc\2, is the 2nd spouse of J00346abc, who is a child of J00346ab, who in turn is a child of J00346a who is child of J00346, a direct ancestor of my root with an AN of 346. Simples

Nifty!

How do you handle orphans? Not in the literal sense, but rather people whose relationship you can't pin down precisely, e.g. when you know the grandparents of an individual but not the specific parents?

If you know Josh is a grandson of J00257ac Fred Bloggs, his parent must be a child of Fred, so I'd give them an ID of x for unknown, so they become J00257acx, so Josh's ID becomes J00257acxa.
The x can be corrected once I find who his parent is.
I try to assign suffixes for children in order they were born, but as this is not always possible, I realised it wasn't important to the scheme, so now I don't try too hard.

Another problem you may encounter is when distant cousins marry, in which case the wife retains her own ID and isn't assigned her husbands ID with a /x suffix. Then I use the Father as the main ID, so their children follow his ID and with their mother retaining her own ID, one can still use it to trace the maternal line back.

The scheme is fairly flexible so you can tailor it to most situations, with the proviso that you stick with True relatives (i.e those who share DNA with the root) plus their spouses. If you start researching spouse's ancestors you'll need to come up with a way to assign them ID's, as you won't have a distant DNA ancestor to link back to.

ADDENDUM File names cannot contain the spouse \, so I subsitute a hyphen
So christening image for J00246abc\1 Joan Green is stored as J00246abc-1 Christening of Joan Green