Today, after benefiting from organizing all the cords for my computers, and rearranging and organizing and storing things, I found yet more to do. Isn’t that they way it always works?

My wife’s grandfather died several weeks ago, and I still had not moved the photos off the camera and onto my computer. I have promised to share them with other of my wife’s family, and with my wife’s recent knee replacement, and other things, just have not gotten it done.

After I got the photos onto the computer, I also wanted to make sure I had all the digital photos in one place. I soon found that I did have all or nearly all digital photos I have ever taken, but in multiple directories and in multiple drives. I was afraid I would have to go to digging through backup CDs, but instead had to sort out duplicate photos, etc. I then made sure to do the same consolidation on my USB backup drive, and then updated the backup to include the new photos.

The consolidation of the digital photos will make it easier to get it all organized as I move forward. This includes digital photo albums I made of my parents 40th anniversary a few years ago. I now need to make albums of other photos and post online to share with family and friends. I use one of two programs from Fookes Software, Album Express or Easy Imager. Both allow re-sizing of images, and adding text and create web pages that can easily be navigated. Album Express is geared more towards the web novice, Easy Imager has lots of bells and whistles. Fookes Software has several other programs that are of use to genealogy. I am a little biased, as I have helped beta test all of them. You can find my name in the acknowledgments in the help files. I will have articles on the other products from Fookes Software, including reviews and how-tos.

In addition to digital photos, we have tons of photos. Unfortunately, most are not labelled. We have two storage boxes holding the album my mom made for me as a young child, and I added to some in college, and our wedding album, and tons of unlabeled photos. Back this winter, I did get started and labeled about a hundred photos, with who and when. Some will only be approximations without a receipt for development.

It is important when labeling photos to use the right kind of pen. A photo safe, acid-free, archival quality pen cost about $2.50 at Wal-Mart. Be sure to store photos ink side up and do not stack them, or the ink will stick them together and you will have writing on the front of photos. I learned this the hard way, but not before I caught the issue, and the ink would wipe off the picture. Plan ahead and do not have a fan or strong breeze when you do start labeling the photos.

Once they are labeled, it would insure you have a copy to scan them in. Services exist to scan photos, but a good letter-sized scanner can be purchased for$100 or less.

Both labeling and scanning and making physical albums are good winter or rainy day activities for a couple or family. Be sure to label photos before the one who knows who people are is gone. When my Granddad was sick, we went through all of his pictures and labeled them to make sure we knew who they were, since he was the only one left who knew. I hope that all of my parents photos are labeled, at least the ones my Mom was the source of knowledge. There is still time for my Dad. Note to self: Find out if all the photos of Mom and Dad are labeled.

Those albums will require the most precious resource – time. So check back here for the progress I make.