We’ve recently met with a neighbor in Bristol who was willing to help us identify a stack of photos left behind by a Monkton resident who passed away. His memory was amazing and we were able to gather many details that would have been lost to history. Chances are good you’ve got a stack of photos like these sitting around somewhere in your house. Please consider pulling them out at your next family gathering to identify people and places before it is too late. The gentleman we met with kept saying, “It’s so sad!” He didn’t only mean the fact that he missed these folks, but that the unidentified people are now lost to us and history. “If only they’d written their names!” he repeated over and over. How sad!
Please use some common sense approaches to labeling old photos. Try to only hold the edges (Uncle Jim doesn’t need a thumb print on his face!) When possible, on the back of the photo at the bottom edge write the key information in #2 pencil: People, date, location. Identify the people by name (in the future “Mom” doesn’t help, but “Pat Kelley, 1980, Monkton, Vt” will help). You can also get special pencils but please don’t let ‘getting it perfect’ get in the way of ‘getting it done’. See these 5 tips for Photo Labeling. Happy Holidays and Happy Memories!