Places change over time. While I am not necessarily an advocate of saving every landscape picture a genealogist has, there are times where saving the picture preserves an image of buildings and other improvements that may not be around in fifty or one hundred years.
My archival image includes road address, GPS coordinates, approximately when picture was taken and which direction I was facing.
But when images of places are preserved, record information about precisely where the item was taken–at least with as much detail as you have. Include at least:
- date of photo–or approximation
- address of location at time photograph was taken if known and if there was even an address
- GPS coordinates if known
- direction facing when photograph was taken
Also include how that information was obtained, who provided it, and when.
This image is one I discovered while using my new slide and negative scanner to scan my parents’ photographic negatives. I’m scanning all the negatives, but not necessarily saving every image of every negative. This is one image I am saving as I don’t have any other pictures of this location from this perspective.
Do not assume buildings will always be standing, roads will always be gravel, telephone lines will be above ground, etc. Things change.
2 Responses
So thankful I took pictures of the ancestral farm 30 years ago when I took my dad past. The building were all removed in the past 10 years. Wish I had taken them more thoroughly.
I know when we took a trip from Oregon to Minnesota back in 1979 (both my parents are from Minnesota), we referenced a couple pictures we had, one of “the old homestead” near Swan Lake and the other was of a gravesite in Emo, Ontario for my great-grandparents. Both pictures helped us locate those places. Yes, there was some change, but for the most part appeared the same, at least enough to find them!