Genealogy Chat

I hope everyone does put on the back of photos who the people are and even try putting a date (or as near as possible). After my experience with my Mother's grandmother and my Mum being in the photo I have gone through the few photos we have to make sure its done. Also never leave old photos with people who are near dementia they normally have a very bad habit of cutting photos up. I nursed Geriatrics for years and saw this happen frequently. People did not seem to realise the value of photos yet our Ancestors went to professional Photo studios and paid what must have been a lot of money. Then the photos are put away and forgotten about for years suddenly someone realises the person they should have asked is either incapable of remembering or worse they have died, what a shame. Pat x

I'm lucky enough to know who the people are in most of the old family photos i have. Recently i came across a photo taken in 1932 of a very pretty 2 year old girl its dated on the back and stamped with the photographers name and was sent to my grandparents as their address is also on the back but I had no idea who it was. I checked back on my tree and narrowed it down to 2 possible cousins of my mums. I copied it and sent the copies to mums aunt who confirmed it was one of the two cousins i had suspected but was unsure which one, She sent it to various other cousins who have now confirmed it was a cousin of my mums who was killed in the war age 8. It was probably sent to my grandparents to remember her by. I'm so pleased I finally found out who it was and even more pleased at who it is as at least we now know what she looked like. So if in doubt you could also follow my idea and send it round the family you never know there maybe someone who knows who it is. Michele

I agree its such a shame , I rang a cousin last week who informed me of lots of newspaper clippings of a relative who had a full military funeral and all sorts of photos which she threw out I cannot believe it, I wish I had spoke to her earlier

Anne, I'm with you because I haven't anything that will write on photographic paper either! Pencil doesn't work ball point pens and normal pen ink don't dry. The only thing I can think of is a small strip of masking tape on the back then write on that. I have recently found a lot of old photographs at my mothers dating from 1920 (and possibly earlier) sadly mother now has the start of dementia and she doesn't know who most of them are. Oh how I wish I had asked my grandparents 30 odd years ago.

Would it be safe to put a sticky label on the back? If it is, you could print these off on the computer, they'd look nice and neat! Hopefully someone on here will know if they'd damage the back of the photo or not. Mandy :)

But what do you do it WITH???!!! I haven't found any good answer yet, and I've been through all the threads! Anne

Can someone recommend what to write with on the back of photos. I had a nasty experience with ball pint pen! It hadn't dried properly when I stacked the photos up again and got blobs on the front - aaggh. Fortunately with the advent of computer editing I have been able to tidy them up again and reprint them, but its a lesson, I won't be doing that again! I find pencil doesn't mark properly on the photographic paper unless you press on - thats no good, it shows on the front. So PLEASE someone tell us what to write with! Anne

Rose, I endorse what you say. My mother-in-law died several years ago. She left loads of wonderful old black and white photos. Only trouble is we have no idea who the people are as she did not write anything on the back. I assume they are of her family, brothers and sisters etc. but there is no-one left to ask. Jean x.

I have just mentioned earlier that I was told a few years back to put names and a small tree on the back of photographs. It will help future researchers in our families identify everyone. Unfortunately my aunt was a great tidier- upper and she threw out trunks of old photos we had in the loft when we were children. Even as small children we used to go through them and were fascinated Rose