Those aren't really YOUR photos

+74 votes
1.0k views

I'm posting this in the Tree House rather than photos because it is a suggestion post.  

On one branch of the family, I have tons of photos - Mom & Grandma preserved the photos and many hang on the living room wall of my Mother.  As I post some of these photos to Facebook, 2nd and 3rd cousins are amazed to see them - they are new for them, never seen before.  It never occurred to me that they would be new to anyone else as I grew up my whole life seeing the ancestors on the wall.

I don't think that my Great-Grandmother one day wrote out her will and said, "All of my photos will be handed to my grand-daughter, only for her use, to be kept and only enjoyed by her."  Usually, we have a photo because a loved one died and we inherited them - not always, but this is often the case.  For siblings who move out of state, their children and grandchildren, in time, lose contact and don't enjoy these family treasures.

I see so many "private photo" entries on Ancestry and I wonder if some descendant is hoarding a box of photos like that gold ring on "Lord of the  Rings."

"My precious photos..."

What would your Great-Grandmother want, that you keep all the photos in your own home? never to be shared with her other children and grandchildren, specifically, your 2nd, 3rd, 4th cousins on the internet?

What happens to you if your house burns down?  Imagine right now that you lost your computer, hard drive, and home.  Do you have a backup of Granny's pics?  And if you do have backups, what if you die suddenly, does the rest of the family know where to find them?  Do they care?  Often, we have 2 or 3 generations who just don't care and the work of previous generations gets flushed at a yard sale after a funeral.  A quick look at old photos for sale on eBay can show you what happens to so many...

The best thing you can do with the family photos of your near-distant and distant relatives (deceased grandparents or older) is to scan them and share them on the internet.

I imagine, if your ancestors were looking over your shoulder right now while you're on your computer, they would want their other descendants to enjoy those photos too.  Share them, and share them liberally.  I have seen, in other discussions on the net that people are worried about ownership rights and pay sites "selling" your photos after a cousin uploads them to Ancestry.  I say, "so what," if you put them on your own website, on Wikitree, and other open sites, they will be available to your distant cousins.

Imagine in 100 years, photos you transfer to your 3rd cousin, may come back to your grandchildren, from their 5th cousins (the grandchildren of your 3rd cousins) should your "branch" of the family lose them.

You won't live forever - the reason for Wikitree is to document your ancestry for future generations - what better way to do that than to share your photos?

Something to think about ;-)

in The Tree House by SJ Baty G2G Astronaut (1.2m points)
edited by SJ Baty
When it wants to send them to HP Director, you should have a choice, try saving them to your desktop or to your "my documents" or another file that you can easily find.  If that proves to be a problem, are one of your kids or grandkids available to help show you how to do it?
One suggestion that I have is to also to document who has the original photo. It is just as important to source these as it it documents. Any person should be able to trace back to the original photo and VERIFY that it is correctly labeled with the person's name. This has been a big issue at Ancestry. I have contacted several people who have photos supposedly of my ancestors, but they can't tell you where they got the photos.....just somewhere on the internet. These people can NOT verify that the photo has been correctly identified. It looked good and had the correct name; therefore, it MUST be the person's ancestor with the same name. After almost 40 years of genealogy research, this is a BIG pet peeve of mine!
I've met a few distant cousins who have originals of the same photos that I have - I suppose that each of the children received prints and then passed those down to their children and those children later became the patri/matriarchs of their branches of our extended family.

Yes, sourcing - I always attribute the photo were I found it (if it isn't mine).  If everyone did that...  well, if everyone sourced... LOL
always seems to go to HP Director but will try to see if I can send it somewhere else  , & no I do not have anyone who can help me - I was the one who always helped others before it go t to where I can no longer retain instructions & have forgotten what I once knew  but thanks for your suggestions

                                  martha
I feel the same way you do.  I have some cherished photos that were given to me by Emma Gwendolyn Fritz Parker of her mother Carolyn Jane Fritz, her husband and their children and some  of her siblings.  I am trying to build profiles and put these photos on them for ancestors to see them.  Oh she also gave me the photo of Maria H. Chesterman Apted and Ronald Chesterman Fritz who is my fathers dad.

I actually forgot I had some of these photos until now. I need to get busy finishing up collecting up information on these and many other ancestors!!!

Taylor.
I love finding and sharing old photos of which I am that happy recipient of boxes of old photos from my grandparents.  Unfortunately I discovered some of my photos had been attached on other sites to the wrong person.  To help avoid that, when I started adding scans of my photos in my custody to WikiTree I edited them first to add text to the bottom each with the person's name and birth/death years as well as my name as the owner of the original.  I now wonder if that by identifying my name as the owner I may discourage someone from using the photo in their tree.  That was not my intent as I love sharing them.  Would such a note keep you from using the photo in your tree?
I think that you could put a note at the bottom with the person's identifying information, saying that non-commercial use is allowed with proper attribution to you.
I've added info to the photos, also. Not only does it prevent confusion about who is in the photos, but you have info that will help you *source* the photo. It's so disappointing to find a photo of g-g-g-Grandpa.....only to find out that the person who submitted the photo can't tell you anything about it.....nothing about where they got it, who has the/an original, etc. Under those circumstances, how can anyone know for sure who is in the photo??? I won't use photos like that on my tree. As my grandfather used to say, "It's like cutting a photo out of a catalog and saying it's your mother." Unfortunately, there are far too many people who don't care whether the info they have and are putting out on the web is accurate and sourced. They seem to be happy just to have a photo for a given person.
YES! Names and dates!

15 Answers

+32 votes
 
Best answer
Well said, SJ!  There is so much that I would like to say in support of your posting that I could easily bore everyone into a stupor.  But I will say this, in my career, the study of historical photos was an almost daily aspect of our work.  These instant slices of time are of untold importance in the study of the past, and not just people, but places, structures, landscape, situations, culture and events that are no longer available to us today.  We have all lost these little connections to the past over time; loss through negligance, fire, flood or whatever takes a daily toll and I'm sure many of us have our own tales of loss.  Sharing is one of the best means of preservation of the importance in these fragile documents.

Overcoming the reaction of "thes are MY photographs, of My family, of MY etc." are hard to overcome, but that is what Wikitree is all about.  It is OUR tree, not MY tree.  We are here to share our families and to ferret out their facts (including photos) as best we can.

It seems to me that this would make a good topic to be included in the "Welcome to Wikitree" info, documents, presentation, greeters, etc.
by Art Black G2G6 Mach 5 (55.1k points)
selected by SJ Baty
Great comments Art; I'm glad to see that you got a "best post" selection for this.
SJ, thanks for the kind words, much appreciated.  And thanks for posting your question, needed to be said!
Art. You are so right as the photos are not just my family, but of a much larger family.  I have run into so many cousins and my family is their family, and so on.  We are passing on moments in time that can never be repeated.  

My family in the current generation isn't interested in what I am doing on Wikitree, and I knew that when I started.  What I do here I am doing for future generations.

Taylor
I wouldn't be put into a stupor. lol, I most likely would even find fault with you being too short or not dramatic enough!

As an Art Docent, I go insane when I see portraits not attributed or attached to the wrong person.

Please sent me the stupor song in a private message.
+18 votes
Yes! I was lucky enough to find photos of my grandfather and his brothers as children that were posted by a distant cousin on Ancestry. They are such treasures and I'm so thankful that this individual chose to share them. Thank you for bringing up this important point!
by E Childs G2G6 Pilot (130k points)
I too found a photo of a great on Ancestry.  Just as import was the scan of the back of the photo that explained how she got her middle name "Savage." It was her mother's maiden name.  That broke a brick wall!
+19 votes
My mother was the lucky recipient of my grandmother's family photos.  I have scanned them and uploaded them to wikitree profiles and on Ancestry.com.  I am thrilled when I see that someone has linked one of the photos to their family tree.  I know that my grandparents, great grandparents and great great grandparents would want them to be shared by all the cousins and not be hoarded as private photos.
by Caryl Ruckert G2G6 Pilot (204k points)
Now we just have to find the cousin that has all of our Ranck family photos!
Wouldn't that be wonderful!
+18 votes
I agree completely.  I love old family photos and a lot of my genealogical effort has been to track down distant cousins to find out if they have any of my ancestors in their possession.  I've had mixed luck, but on several occasions I have been able to bring my scanner along with me on visits to these cousins, digitize their photos, and get permission to share them online.  It's a lot of work (fortunately it's work I enjoy) and would be a lot easier if everybody with photos cared enough to share them and had the time and technological know-how to do so.

As a side note, I feel like there is nothing more frustrating than finding a poor quality scan of an old Xerox copy of a great photo.  I find myself wondering who has the original now? What details are missing? If I find it how can I make sure a quality scan can be made?
by Brian Lamothe G2G6 Mach 4 (42.8k points)
Glad to hear it Brian!

And I agree, some of the photos I have of my relatives are photos of Xerox copies - still looking for the originals :-1
+21 votes

I came across a photo on Ancestry that was labeled, Aunt Angela.  I studied it and realized that it was my grandmother, who I had only met a couple of times (my parents were divorced and estranged).

by Lucy Selvaggio-Diaz G2G6 Pilot (816k points)
What a lovely discovery.  Have you been able to find out who holds the original?
+19 votes
Old photos are great but beware of some of the Ancestry photographs. People are as careless with those as they are with data. There is a very nice photograph on several trees of my 4greats grandfather taken as a young man. He had fought in the American Revolution and he died in 1824.

A suggestion. If you find another "cousin" with photographs, it can be very useful to compare collections. Often, one that wasn't labeled by one family will be labeled by the other. My wife did that with a second cousin and the two sides got more complete identification.
by Doug McCallum G2G6 Pilot (525k points)
Should have mentioned copyright. Photos from before 1923 are no problem. Some professional photographs after that time might be copyright but probably not. 1978 and later and all photographs are copyright by the person who took them (not the person who owns a copy). For families, this isn't likely an issue but studio photos could be.
I am confused...

You made a great observation about Ancestry.

You made valid point about comparing photos.

Did you mean to say that "there is a very nice copy of a painting"?

Photography was not invented until 1822 in Frances. It was another 10 to15 years before photography was available in the United States
Nope, it was a photograph. If looked at closely and the clothing examined, the photograph was for a Civil War era person. Photographs need to be evaluated carefully. I fully understood the history of photography but a lot of new genealogists don't look at things in context or bother to understand the history.

Yes, Doug, every attempt must be made to contact the holder of the copyright for studio, wedding, etc. photographs.  I always start a search to find the studio (found on the back of original photos).  Since that fails with many old photos, I attempt to find any living relatives or heirs.  Doing as thorough a search for heirs as I would for a profile.  Last, I always put the name of the studio or photographer when I enter the photo info on WikiTree.  Photos with attribution are fine on WT, unless the original photographer makes a request to remove the photo. 

+10 votes
Sj,

as you know, I totally agree with you on this. i hope to preserve MY photos for current and future generations.
by Robert Webb G2G6 Mach 7 (74.3k points)
+14 votes
Yes it's nice to share your family photo's but what isn't nice is when someone takes one of those photo's and re-labels it with an incorrect name of an ancestor from a previous generation and people copy the photo thinking they have an actual photo of the person named when that is not the case.  So before you copy a photo make sure it is actually the person it's suppose to be and not a photo that is of another person that someone has misidentified.
by Carol Wilder G2G6 Mach 7 (71.7k points)
Yes, definitely a problem. I alluded to it in my earlier post. I guess no one has caught that the supposed photograph of my 4greats grandfather  would have to have been taken somewhere on the order of 45 years (give or take) before photography was invented. I suspect it was a grandson. The same woman also has what she says is his signature. The image is of a manilla file folder on supposedly his US naturalization record from the late 1800s. He died in 1824 and was a Canadian. Just another fun image that is totally misleading.
Yup, can't do much about that on some sites - Wikitree on the other hand, thanks to collaboration, we can fix those errors when we find them.
Anyone?

What motivation/reason does one have for relabeling?
+10 votes
I love this. Love! I feel the exact same way,which is why I love and make a point to upload all the photos I find to WikiTree. So much information gets lost and people lost a chance to know their ancestors in this way when images are hoarded. I back them all up publicly on Flickr, too, just in case WikiTree ever met tragedy (heaven forbid!). Thanks for thinking out loud!
by Abby Glann G2G6 Pilot (718k points)
Good point about multiple backups, I hope WT will live forever!
+1 vote
I completely disagree with this post. My photos *are* my photos for my lifetime.  I have been massively burnt from over-sharing of photographs, and so I got rid of the photos I have in Wikitree, and I made all of my Flickr photographs private (although I plan to delete the account in the next two years).  When I die, the historical photographs (and scans I made) will be donated to a local climate-controlled museum.  At that point, they *will* no longer be my photographs.  Until then, they are mine.
by J. Crook G2G6 Pilot (225k points)
You got "massively burnt."  Can you elaborate on that?

I'm having trouble understanding how, if you share a photo of your great-grandmother who died 60 years ago, how on earth that could "burn" you.

There are definitely downsides to sharing. I'm selective about what I will share after a photograph of a painting I did showed up (with watermark removed) on a commercial site as a print for sale (violating my copyright).

Also, check the terms the local museum will put on them. My wife is still debating where to donate the historical photos since the most obvious place wants all rights to the photos and family will have to pay for non-watermarked versions and you aren't supposed to share any copies you still have with anyone. The next most obvious place has limited access (mostly by appointment). 

We're talking apples and oranges.  I didn't say anything about a painting just created or a photo shot yesterday - in my original post, I said distant and near distant relative photos - in other words, old family photos.  And even if someone does "steal" the photo and offer it on a paid site, how does that hurt any of us?  The theft under copyright deprives the owner or license holder of revenue because someone will buy the print from the bootleg website rather than buy it from you.  But no one is making any revenue from great-granny's wedding photo from 1891.  And even if Ancestry takes it and sells it to subscription holders, who cares if the same photo is available for free on Wikitree.
Everything depends on what an individual is expecting. If they don't want to see Great Granny's wedding photo in someone's book on Victorian era weddings, they shouldn't post it. It might be assumed that it is public domain so could easily be used without asking permission but it could well still be under copyright. The book author would be making money off of it.

Then there are modern photographs that people assume are their's to do with as they please, but the photographer needs to give permission (or the descendants if he/she has died). Many people don't seem to realize that with the "I own the photograph so can do what I want" attitude. Technically, scanning for your personal use is considered a violation of copyright.
Doug, regarding your first paragraph - great-granny's photo in a Victorian dress website, you can contact the site and notify them of copyright infringement and there are remedies available.  On the other hand, if someone is worried about great-granny's photo on a website, maybe Wikitree isn't the best place for them.  After all, Granny's date of birth, death, children's names, etc., are on the site.  Perhaps an Ancestry private tree is the best place for them.  And again, who are you or I to say what great-grandma wanted?  I'm one of at least 50 great-grand kids.  Just because I hold the photo I know what great-granny wanted?  What about the say of the other 49 cousins?

That's the point of this post - the good very much outweighs the bad.  The good being preservation and sharing with cousins.  The bad would be our obsessive neurotic desire to control the photos of a long since deceased person.

Regarding your second paragraph, again, we aren't talking about modern photos, we're talking about photos of distant and near-distant relatives.  I challenge you to find a single case, ever, of copyright infringement being brought against the holder of a turn of the century family photo that was scanned by a descendant.

The only real reason for copyright laws are to protect the financial interests of the photographers and artists.  Who can say who was the photographer of my great-grandparents wedding in 1898?  I'm pretty sure that > 99% of distant ancestor family photos are not covered by any copyright.
I don't know of a lawsuit, but I do know someone who inherited the copyright to great granny's photos, published a book in the early 1980s and is quite aggressive about maintaining that copyright (which expires in 2047). A few who have posted one of those photos have had to take them down. My wife has some of the original prints made at the time but the copyright's went to one specific individual and not down my wife's line.

In most cases no one will care. Just warning that copyright is not simple and you could be asked to take things down. As long as you comply usually no problems.
+10 votes
Words can not describe how important what you write is to live by.  My Mother hoarded family pictures and many we did not find until after she passed.  Almost none of them are labeled.

I have painstakingly, through either process of elimination or comparing with other relatives, have discovered identities of unknown photos.  Some I will never figure out.  Some I hope to use the internet to discover.

These are not my photos, these are FAMILY photos and belong to my cousins and nieces and nephews just as much as they do to me.  I have invested in a scanner that I use to scan at the highest quality (since hard drive space has gotten 'cheap').  I back them up to the cloud as much as I can.

You spoke about fire.  My Grannie's sister (they were the only two children) lost her house and all her pictures in a house fire.  I am sharing pictures with her descendants that they never saw or knew were around.  By sharing what I have, I have encouraged other distant cousins to share what they have.

If you don't have the time or skill to scan good quality pictures there are online services that you can send photos and negatives in to be professionally scanned.  Please share, share everything you have.  If someone insists on a hard copy that is easy to provide today as well.
by Brendan Zoglman G2G2 (2.4k points)
Great answer, thanks for sharing!
+4 votes
Just curious, what would happen if almost 24 mil photos was uploaded to Wikitree? And that's only if one photo per profile was uploaded, which wouldn't happen, but instead there might be more than just one added to a profile.
by Antonia Reuvers G2G6 Mach 5 (57.4k points)
WT would expand its hard drive size and bandwidth or otherwise limit the # of photos per profile.  I suppose that all of those photos and visitors would offset the cost so it would probably work itself out in the end.
Also, photos can be uploaded to other sites; so long as they are open to the public I suppose that it doesn't matter where they find a home.
+6 votes
I agree about sharing photo's. I agree with another comment about being careful in using and identifying photo's posted on Ancestry.   My biggest pet peeve is people who copy photo's that are identified with names, and then re-post them and put entirely different names on the photo.  I posted a photo of my great grandfather's sister and her husband, (Sena Elizabeth Martin and Rev. James David Martin), with both of their names and tentative date the photo was taken.  A person then down loaded the photo, and changed the name to identify the photo as being a photo of John Wilder and his wife Sena Jordan who were the grandparents of Sena Elizabeth Martin.  Now there are over 150 family trees on Ancestry with a photo identified as being a photo of John Wilder and Sena Jordan when the photo is actually a photo of their grand daughter and her husband that was taken 30 years after John and Sena Wilder's death's.
by Carol Wilder G2G6 Mach 7 (71.7k points)
+4 votes

Family disputes are likely to be the cause of some photo “kidnapping” and “hostage situations”. 

How very sad it is when a member of the family refuses to part with, or even allow a copy to be made of a family photo for spite. It unfortunately happens often. The Ancestry Facebook group is full of stories about this.

Sharing our beloved photos with our family members is kind, caring, loving, thoughtful and generous. 

This whole thing reminds me of little kids on the playground who are disagreeable. 

by Susan Ellen Smith G2G6 Mach 7 (74.3k points)
+2 votes

Our family photo archivist has over 20,000 old family photos given to him by relatives close and some very distant since the 1940s.  He has spent his life identifying every unlabeled one.  

As he approached old age, he gave as many as possible to university and other archives.  The scans are kept in several places, and he's sent flash drives to all immediate family and decedents, plus anyone who requests one.  

I understand not every family will have someone so dedicated to preserving their photos, but I hope some will take a few suggestions:  (1) identify any photos you can using friends, old neighbors and every other source possible before they pass on; (2) label every photo fully with names, dates (even approximate ones), locations [my paternal grandparents farm is now under a lake], event, etc.; (3) scan copies and store them in at least three offsite locations; (4) consider who will take over your archive duties and note them in your wills. 

by Teresa Conant G2G6 Mach 7 (79.8k points)

Related questions

+33 votes
3 answers
359 views asked May 4, 2019 in The Tree House by SJ Baty G2G Astronaut (1.2m points)
+13 votes
7 answers
1.7k views asked Feb 19, 2022 in The Tree House by Emma MacBeath G2G Astronaut (1.2m points)
+6 votes
5 answers
+3 votes
1 answer
211 views asked Apr 26, 2022 in The Tree House by Mary Gilkerson G2G6 Mach 5 (50.9k points)
+5 votes
2 answers
+4 votes
1 answer
169 views asked Dec 4, 2021 in Photos by Julie Holland G2G6 Mach 1 (19.0k points)
+1 vote
1 answer
122 views asked Mar 24, 2013 in Genealogy Help by Living Brown G2G4 (4.7k points)

WikiTree  ~  About  ~  Help Help  ~  Search Person Search  ~  Surname:

disclaimer - terms - copyright

...