I would be interested in the reference sheet. Thanks. Walt [email protected]
-----Original Message----- From: Robert Austen Sent: Saturday, October 13, 2012 8:54 AM To: [email protected] Subject: RE: [LegacyUG] What to do with genealogical files after death of compi ler Hi John, I use the 'military' naming system (as my cousin Geoff called it) "LastName, FirstName - bithhdate-deathdate" for my photos. In addition I 'write on the back' of digital photos in the 'IPTC Information' that is stored in the digital image - here you can add the names, dates, places, comments, etc. I think Legacy's Geoff Rasmussen offered the challenge 'How quickly can you find a particular picture?'. I don't need to consult an index page, or other source, to find a picture and anyone else could easily locate them as well. I am always interested in how others do their work so, yes, I would love to receive your naming rational. Keep up the good work. Thanks in advance. Bob -----Original Message----- From: hwedhlor [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Friday, October 12, 2012 11:56 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [LegacyUG] What to do with genealogical files after death of compi ler JLB and Robert Austen, Thank you both for your kind remarks. On the further subject of archiving images in Legacy and elsewhere, while I was working through the thousands of documents, articles and images a lady delivered to my friend a pair of cardboard boxes, each measuring about two feet on each side. Both boxes were filled to the brim with beautiful photographs, mostly from the last quarter of the 19th century, though some were as late as the 1920s from the styles of clothing, and some were early cabinet photos from the 1860s. They were all extremely well preserved and unblemished, mounted in mats and folders. The product of a variety of studios in a variety of geographic locations. The lady who brought them had no idea who they were, or to whom they might be related. She knew that we were doing some fairly intensive work on family history and thought we might be able to identify some of them or find descendants who might like to have them. Unfortunately not a single photograph had any identifying markings. Those photos should have been scanned and posted on web sites for others to view and possibly identify. I have no idea what the disposition of those photos was. What a tragic loss to the families of those in the photos. I urge all of you to mark the photos you have with names, dates, places and circumstances where know, and also to scan each image and develop a file naming standard that will allow anyone viewing the file names to know who, what, when and where they were taken. Paper, or electronic filing systems that tag photos and image files with numbers and require separate index lists to identify those in the photos, or systems that place photos and image files in folders by surname, but only use given names on the photos themselves, often end up with the index lists disappearing, or the photos being separated from the surname folders. Each individual photo, or electronic image file should bear enough information to identify the people in the image, along with the date, place and ideally the circumstances of that photo or image file. I strongly urge that your file naming standard be based on surnames rather than on dates. Our goal is to document the lives of people, not the happenings of years. Those who come after us may not have a clue what year look at for a particular image, but they will recognize the surnames, and often the given names, of those whose image they seek in a list of electronic file names. There is much more that can be done to develop a useful file naming standard, and I have documented such a standard in previous submissions to this list. I developed my personal standard over a period of years working with thousands of photographs of other peoples families. Having such a file naming standard allowed me to organize those images so that I could find anyone easily in seconds. That standard us now fairly well-established, though minor changes continue to evolve as needs arise. One of the additional benefits of the file naming standard I use is that it allows me to keep all of my electronic images of individuals in a single folder, and images of groups (2 or more people in a photo), documents and places & things in three sub-folders. That makes it very easy to both back up those image files, or to move them if the need arises. If anyone is interested I will be happy to send them a five-page rationale and a one-page quick reference sheet, both in MS Word format, or to publish that rationale here if there is sufficient demand. John Zimmerman Mesa, AZ Legacy User Group guidelines: http://www.LegacyFamilyTree.com/Etiquette.asp Archived messages after Nov. 21 2009: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ Archived messages from old mail server - before Nov. 21 2009: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ Online technical support: http://www.LegacyFamilyTree.com/Help.asp Follow Legacy on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/LegacyFamilyTree) and on our blog (http://news.LegacyFamilyTree.com). To unsubscribe: http://www.LegacyFamilyTree.com/LegacyLists.asp Legacy User Group guidelines: http://www.LegacyFamilyTree.com/Etiquette.asp Archived messages after Nov. 21 2009: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ Archived messages from old mail server - before Nov. 21 2009: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ Online technical support: http://www.LegacyFamilyTree.com/Help.asp Follow Legacy on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/LegacyFamilyTree) and on our blog (http://news.LegacyFamilyTree.com). To unsubscribe: http://www.LegacyFamilyTree.com/LegacyLists.asp
