I have many photos from school, 60 years ago, and can identify most of the people. Would these be of value?

Question

These are of teams, classes and other school groups during the 1950s. I also have access to school photos of my fathers generation.

Comments

I think you have a real treasure. If it hasn't been done already, I suggest you devise a key and identify as many people as you can. That will make your collection more valuable. Adding dates and locations would be great.

Our local Heritage Center prints school  and team pictures in a large format and sets them out so that visitors can identify the ʻunknownsʻ, sometimes the small local paper prints pictures and asks for help to identify folks.  People love to find classmates or their Dad or Grampa in the pictures (and Mom and Grandma). An aside - families frequently come in the Center and pose near the photo of an ancestor for a family portrait.

I wonder if putting a location tag on your question would draw the attention of classmates. You might find old friends and be able to share the pictures privately. Maybe add tags for a couple of the surnames of people in the picture.

You probably were not looking for an hours or days long project. History is important and connections are interesting and fun.

Answer 1

One man's trash is another man's treasure. Nothing brings back memories quicker than a photo. If you have saved them for 60 years, I dare say they have value to you. Those you may encounter from back then are sure to get a kick out of them. From a genealogy perspective, you will be surprised to find connections among you and those you considered only as classmates.

Answer 2

I think they do have value, and you should certainly not dispose of them.  If you are pondering whether you should post them on the web and identify the people, I would be a little cautious about that.  There are many still-living people who are not fans of having old school photos and yearbooks online for anyone to view, and do not care to have their names and photos end up in an unknown data base somewhere.  If those of your father's generation are all deceased, it may be OK to post their photos.

For photos with still-living people, I say create an index that identifies them, if you're able and it doesn't already exist, but leave the public revelation to the next generation.  Just my opinion, others may differ.

Comments

After attending a funeral of a friend's mom, a friend of mine from high school,  he looked for my photo in the senior class picture. He spent some time looking as I came from a class of over 500 students. When he couldn't find me, he looked for my individual photo was a blank space. He couldn't believe I didn't have my picture taken in High School. I quickly responded that I couldn't believe that it took him almost 50 years to notice. I never willingly allow myself to end up on social media, then or now.

Answer 3

You could create a free-space profile for the school (or for a particular year in that school), upload scans of several photos to that page, and use the text section of the page to display the photos with captions.

I imagine that it would attract interest from other alumni of the school, as well as people interested in the community.

Answer 4

You could possibly share them on a site like https://deadfred.com/ ... even though they are group photos.  Include as much information as you can when you upload them.

Comments

Can you give me some of the other sites that you refer to. Deadfred isn't helping much so other sources would be appreciated. Thanks. John

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I don't have any other sites bookmarked that would help you in this case.  Try doing a search for photo sharing identification websites.

The only other site I have bookmarked is https://www.civilwarphotosleuth.com/ , which is only for Civil War photos.