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Notes on the back of old photos

(43 Posts)
Foxglove77 Mon 22-Sept-25 18:04:16

Ive been clearing my Mum's house as she has gone into a Nursing home with advanced dementia.

Bitter sweet memories going through her old photos. There is a lovely black and white photo of her and our Aunty, both in pretty dresses on holiday, smiling with a little dog.

In my Mum's handwriting she has written "Nancy and me in Haying Island August 1956 with my dog Patch."

This tells me she was only 16, where they were and the name of her dog, which was lovely to know.

Allira Tue 23-Sept-25 21:13:57

Colls

For the last 'tech' times - since about 1993 I have realised that digital photos will mainly be lost to future generations.
I wish there was a depot for all this social history.

I wonder if it is possible to upload photos of the originals onto genealogy sites? Watching Who Do You Think You Are, people are so happy to find photos of previous generations.
Mostly younger people are not interested but as soon as they hit 50ish, start to get more interested.

FoxGlove77, could you afford to have them all digitalised - with the notes on the back, that is much easier to pass on. A sort of time-package for children or grandchildren etc.?

You can upload photographs on to Ancestry in your Family Tree.

That's how I discovered some photos of DH's extended family and in fact met some of the family he had no idea existed.

Crossstitchfan Tue 23-Sept-25 21:32:27

Petra, thank you! I had no idea the photos could still be found on the cloud. I will look into this.

FranP Tue 23-Sept-25 22:14:12

cornergran

I was also in holiday on Hayling Island in 1956 foxglove. It was my parents choice for our annual week at the seaside. smile. Mr C and I have had several holidays there too. It’s not changed so much.

Me too.
One memory is my sister turning on the poolside shower while I was under it. I had never seen one before.

We went there for a couple of years before moving to Scotland in 58

DotScot Tue 23-Sept-25 23:51:22

Allira said You can upload photographs on to Ancestry in your Family Tree.

You can, and many people do, but be aware that the uploaded images then become the property of Ancestry.

Les1950 Wed 24-Sept-25 00:34:49

Crossstitchfan; I took my fone to a shop which can print them out as fotos, if you can't print them from the cloud.

PaynesGrey Wed 24-Sept-25 00:57:20

DotScot

Allira said You can upload photographs on to Ancestry in your Family Tree.

You can, and many people do, but be aware that the uploaded images then become the property of Ancestry.

No they do not.

Ancestry Copyright Policy is clear:

Content which has been contributed to public areas of Ancestry® sites by users remains the property of the submitter or the original creator and we are a licensed distributor of such content.

support.ancestry.co.uk/s/article/Ancestry-Copyright-Policy

Esmay Wed 24-Sept-25 02:55:09

Last week I opened a huge tin box and found dozens of photographs which I can't identify.
Some were taken in Central America and a few in India .
I've tried to sort them out,
but with little success .
If my parents were alive I could ask them .
The extraordinary thing is they kept horticultural notes in incredible detail .
Obviously they were that interested in their families or ancestry .

PamelaJ1 Wed 24-Sept-25 07:22:55

We make photo books. And then delete the photos we no longer want.
You can make them very interesting as you can add information on the pages.
One of my aunt and her new husband on one page has their names and the damming words ‘He was a Philanderer!’
He was too!
You can scan old photos to add them to the book. Lots of companies do this online.

Longdistancegrnny Wed 24-Sept-25 08:46:35

After DH's parents died we went through their photos, mostly views were labelled, but not the ones of people! We thought we had struck lucky when we spotted some writing on one of a group of people - it said 'Tuesday'!!!

mrsba Wed 24-Sept-25 11:20:09

I have 100's of old photos sadly not labelled and no-one left to tell me who they are of,some people in the pictures have beautiful clothes, but is it worth keeping them my (adult) children don't want them.

Crossstitchfan Wed 24-Sept-25 11:27:44

Les1950

Crossstitchfan; I took my fone to a shop which can print them out as fotos, if you can't print them from the cloud.

Thank you. I’ll give that a go.

50sgirl Thu 25-Sept-25 11:32:33

I get my photos printed straight from my phone by Freeprints, wonderful service, you just load the app by putting into your phone Freeprints, tick the photos you want printed on your phone, I think you are allowed about 40. They just charge fee for postage.

Doodledog Thu 25-Sept-25 11:46:33

I was told by a professional photographer that we should write in stickers and put those on the back of photos rather than writing on them directly, as the pressure of the pen on the paper can make copying them difficult. I think there might be some possible reaction between the inks too, but I can't remember more than the fact that stickers are the way to go.

PaynesGrey Thu 25-Sept-25 11:57:02

Yes. Pen or pencil pressure can “emboss” the paper leaving raised impressions on the right side which will affect any attempt to scan them. My late DH learned the hard way by writing descriptions on the back of a set of holiday snaps with a ballpoint pen!. Fortunately that’s all they were. We had the negatives should we have wished to reprint them but what he did could have damaged irreplaceable vintage photos. Advanced Photoshop tools can clean up a lot of imperfections but far better to take care in the first place!

DotScot Sun 28-Sept-25 21:41:09

Thanks for the correction PaynesGrey. It is a while since I used Ancestry and they have obviously responded to users' concerns about this.

Allira Sun 28-Sept-25 21:45:59

Doodledog

I was told by a professional photographer that we should write in stickers and put those on the back of photos rather than writing on them directly, as the pressure of the pen on the paper can make copying them difficult. I think there might be some possible reaction between the inks too, but I can't remember more than the fact that stickers are the way to go.

Yes, stickers are best for the backs of photos.

I have an envelope full of old but good family photos from DH's family but neither of us have any idea who they are, neither did his cousin when we asked. It seems such a shame to bin them as I keep thinking we might find out one day.

Allira Sun 28-Sept-25 21:48:13

PaynesGrey

DotScot

Allira said You can upload photographs on to Ancestry in your Family Tree.

You can, and many people do, but be aware that the uploaded images then become the property of Ancestry.

No they do not.

Ancestry Copyright Policy is clear:

Content which has been contributed to public areas of Ancestry® sites by users remains the property of the submitter or the original creator and we are a licensed distributor of such content.

support.ancestry.co.uk/s/article/Ancestry-Copyright-Policy

Thanks PaynesGrey.

I think it does say on Ancestry who else has downloaded any photos into their family tree.