Floundering in a Sea of Photographs

I read a very interesting post at the Olive Tree Genealogy Blog this morning in which Lorine discussed her plans to organise her family photographs. A number of readers had posted thoughtful comments to the post.

I made some comments that I think are worthy of post on this blog so I am repeating what I said  here.

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My four grown children all enjoy flipping through our family albums and reminiscing.I am preparing a digital album for each of them.

I have combined my parents and inlaws collections with mine - the photos are all in albums arranged chronogically.

Over the Christmas break I borrowed a scanner with a feeder that would scan 20 photos at a time - a great timesaver. Over a couple of weeks I scanned around 5,000 images into folders by year with subfolders of specific dates for occasions like weddings, 21sts with lots of images. I scanned the images as .tif images at a high resolution. These are saved on an external drive and backed up to another.

I already use Picasa to organise my digital photos so I imported all my newly scanned images into that program. So far I have tagged 35 years of photos with names,location and various other labels eg Christmas, Swimming, Family Cars. Initially I applied a year tag to each image (easy to do in big batches). I have 19 more years to tag so I can see that an end is in sight.

Once the tagging is completed I will easily be able to retrieve collections to burn onto CDs not just for my children but for aunts, cousins and family friends.

My advice is get your images scanned and then organise them with software like Photoshop Elements, the Windows Live product or Picasa. Don't try to scan with a flatbed scanner - it is too time consuming. Get hold of a scanner with a feeder for a more painless process. Scan at a high resolution and edit your images with software. I particularly like the straighten photo facility in Picasa.

Thanks for raising this issue. We all need to think about preserving current family history for future generations.

Found a Florence in your family tree? Please share the story.

Nearly half the year has gone and I just discovered that this year, 2010, is International Year of the Nurse (IYNurse). It is the centenary year of the death of the founder of modern nursing - Florence Nightingale (1820-1910). In a 2009 poll "nurses have been voted the most trusted profession in America according to Gallup's annual survey of professions for their honesty and ethical standards".


On its website The Royal College of Nursing, Australia (RCNA) states "RCNA  is dedicated to profiling the achievements of Australian nurses throughout the year". Unfortunately I can't find any  IYNurse stories on their site. There have been some celebrations in the United States,  a new Florence Nightingale Museum has been opened in London and the International website invites people to submit Nurse Stories and Nurse Tributes.

I need to scour my family tree to see if I can find some nurses to write about. There must be some wonderful nurse stories lurking in family histories all around the world.

Genealogists, let's not let 2010 slip away without recognising this noble profession. How about  sharing the stories of the Florences in your tree on your blogs and websites in this International Year of the Nurse?

Comparison of Windows Live Photo Gallery with Picasa - New Version

Genealogists, are you wondering which free photo management software to use for your precious family photos?

Amit Agarwal of Digital Inspiration , one of my favourite blogs, compares Windows Live Photo Gallery with Picasa in this thoughtful and detailed post. I switched to Picasa this year and am happy with the tool but would give Windows Live Photo Gallery a try if I was starting afresh.

Comparison of Windows Live Photo Gallery with Picasa - New Version

Flatline defeated

I couldn't wait 24 hours to check Google Analytics. 6 hours was long enough for me! After Brian posted a comment to say he had visited curiosity got the better of me.

Thank you to those 4 Australians and 1 American who have visited my blog today - I am pleased to report that Google Analytics is up and running.  Now I just need to remember to add the script when next I change my template.