Preserving and Organizing Family Photos – An Interview With Maureen Taylor

Summary

Family Tree Magazine Podcast

Episode Title: Preserving and Organizing Family Photos – An Interview With Maureen Taylor
Host: Lisa Louise Cook (Family Tree Editors)
Guest: Maureen Taylor, "The Photo Detective"
Date: February 1, 2025

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Episode Overview

This episode centers around the often-daunting task of preserving and organizing family photos, with genealogy expert Maureen Taylor guiding listeners through her seven-step process. Drawing from her article "Photographic Memory" in Family Tree Magazine, Taylor shares practical wisdom and encouragement on managing both physical and digital family photo collections while ensuring they’re preserved for future generations.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Challenge of Organizing Family Photos

• Many people struggle with boxes of old paper photos in various conditions, often feeling overwhelmed about what to keep or toss. The initial step requires making tough decisions about what’s worth keeping.
  • “We all go on vacation... in two years, if you haven’t labeled those, are you going to know which beach it is?” —Maureen Taylor [02:36]

2. Step 1: Weeding Out Photos

• Start by weeding out unnecessary photos, like double prints or images with little genealogical value.
• Consider gifting photos to others who may appreciate them (e.g., candid wedding shots to the bride).
• Evaluate the future genealogical worth of images: prioritize those with identifiable people, important locations, or events.
  • “It is freeing because there’s what, less weight in your life emotionally and physically.” —Maureen Taylor [03:49]
• Old local scenes may be valuable to historical societies.

3. Step 2: Scanning Prints & Labeling

• After weeding, label your physical images, then digitize them. Labeling is essential for both physical and digital versions.
• Don’t feel obligated to digitize every single photo; prioritize meaningful images to reduce workload.
  • “A digitization project does not need to be the whole thing... having the end in mind, which is your kids and your grandkids...” —Lisa Louise Cook [06:25]
• Scanning photos provides security against loss due to disasters like wildfires.
• Weeding digital collections is just as important—delete blurry or redundant shots.

4. Step 3: Choosing a Digital Photo Organizer

• Try out different digital organizers by uploading a small batch of photos (15–30) before making a full commitment.
• Recommended tools include MemoryWeb (noted for back-and-front linking), Forever, and others. Ensure the tool fits your workflow and is sustainable.
• Most organizers allow exporting photos.
• Look for features such as legacy contacts (e.g., Forever’s “legacy program”), mobile and desktop access, and audio story attachments.
  • “Find one that works for you with your budget and the number of photos that you have.” —Maureen Taylor [07:16]

5. Step 4: Gather Preservation Supplies

• Don’t throw physical photos away after scanning! Physical preservation remains vital.
• Invest in acid-free, lignin-free storage containers, and consider polyester sleeves, especially for older, more precious photos.
• Products from companies like Gaylord are recommended.
  • “Absolutely not. You need a few simple supplies to store your photos.” —Maureen Taylor [11:56]
• Always keep the original, especially older photographs, for future re-scanning or technology updates.

6. Step 5: Choosing the Best Storage Space

• Avoid storing photos in garages, basements, or attics due to temperature/humidity fluctuations or risk of flooding.
• Ideally, use a windowless closet or custom cabinets in a climate-controlled area. Keep away from water pipes or fireplaces.
  • “I look for a windowless closet in my house...I had cabinets built into my office for the storage of my family photos.” —Maureen Taylor [14:29]

7. Step 6: Preparing for Disaster

• Disaster preparedness (natural or otherwise) means having backup plans for your photos—both digital and physical.
• Temporary use of plastic tubs is acceptable during imminent threats, but not for long-term storage.
• Have local conservator contacts on hand and know key home information (e.g., water shutoff) for emergencies.
• Store digital copies in multiple places (e.g., fire safe box, external hard drives, cloud storage, etc.)
  • “I have multiple backups. I have like three backups.” —Maureen Taylor [18:50]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Weeding Photos:

  • “You have to think in terms of, you know, what’s that photo gonna be worth to you genealogically in 50 years?” —Maureen Taylor [02:36]

• On Digitizing:

  • “If those people don’t have their photos scanned and stored in a cloud-based system... those images are gone.” —Maureen Taylor [05:12]

• On Photo Organizers:

  • “Try them out first to see if they’re compatible with the way that you think and you work, because they’re all just a little bit different.” —Maureen Taylor [07:16]

• On Disaster Backups:

  • “You can just grab [a hard drive] and put it in your car and go.” —Maureen Taylor [17:18]

• On Multiple Backups:

  • “I have multiple backups. I have like three backups. ...Multiples.” —Maureen Taylor [18:50]

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• [01:52] Weeding your photo collection — making first cuts, gifting, and donating.
• [04:42] Scanning and labeling—creating digital backups.
• [07:05] Selecting a digital photo organizer and tips for onboarding.
• [11:43] Gathering proper preservation supplies and the importance of keeping originals.
• [14:29] Choosing optimal storage spaces within your home.
• [16:12] Disaster preparedness advice and the importance of multiple backups.
• [19:13] Maureen’s encouragement and closing advice.

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Final Encouragement

“It will take time, it will take patience. But when you’re done, that sense of accomplishment... for the next generation will be amazing. And don’t get discouraged. It is possible.”
—Maureen Taylor [19:13]

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Additional Resources

• Maureen Taylor: maureentaylor.com | @thephotodetective on all social media
• Read the “Photographic Memory” Article: January/February 2025 issue, Family Tree Magazine
• Recommended Preservation Supplier: Gaylord Archival (gaylord.com)

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This episode offers a practical, step-by-step guide for anyone seeking to bring order and security to their family photo legacy, with expert insights, actionable tips, and reassuring encouragement that this task, while time-consuming, is both achievable and rewarding.

Transcript

[A]

Welcome to the Family Tree Magazine podcast. This is the show from America's number one genealogy magazine. I'm Lisa Louise Cook.

[B]

It's a wonderful thing to have old family photos, but organizing them can present quite a challenge. They may be in loose boxes or stuck in old magnetic albums or other albums that are falling apart. So to help us tackle the daunting task of preserving your treasured photos is my guest, the photo detective, Maureen Taylor. Hi, Maureen.

[C]

Hey, Lisa. How are you?

[B]

I'm doing great. I'm excited about this topic. I know pretty much everybody struggles with the physical version of photos, right? I mean, we're all taking digital now, but in family history, hopefully, we have lots and lots of the. The paper kind.

[C]

Well, let's hope so. But, yeah, everyone struggles with the paper stuff. Like, what are they going to do with it? It takes up space. What can they keep? What can they get rid of?

[B]

Yes.

[C]

I mean, it's. It's a lot more than the digital. Just click and delete so well, and.

[B]

You'Re helping them deal with that. In the January and February issue of Family Tree magazine, your article's called Photographic Memory, and you laid out seven steps to preserve and organize family photos. So I would love to go through those with you today here for our podcast audience, because I know they're gonna. They're gonna love this article. And number one, I think, sounds like the hardest one. Maureen, you say that we have to start weeding out our. Do we really?

[C]

There. There are photos you don't need? Yeah, I mean, there are photos I don't need. Like, double prints. Do you really need double prints? Can you gift those double prints to someone? I was cleaning out a box a couple years ago, and I found a little. A little box of slides from one of my good friend's weddings. I was in the wedding party, right? And I don't need all these pictures of her relatives. I think I always meant to give them to her. And I asked her, I said, I have all these pictures of your wedding. And she goes, I have no candid photographs of my wedding. I would love them. Oh, great. Problem solved. Off they went.

[B]

Yes.

[C]

And you have to think in terms of, you know, what's that photo gonna be worth to you genealogically in 50 years? I don't know about you, but, you know, we all go on vacation, right? You're about to go on vacation, you said yes, and you'll probably take a lot of beach photos, but in two years, if you haven't labeled those, are you going to know which beach it is unless it's a really distinctive beach.

[B]

Yes. Right, right.

[C]

You really need those. Your descendants are going to be overwhelmed. This is what I hear from people that they're overwhelmed with. The number is particularly slides that their parents and grandparents have left them, boxes.

[B]

And boxes of carousel trays and oftentimes unmarked, unlabeled. So even if it's a wonderful, interesting place, they may not even know where that is. And I know I went through all my doubles and I did. I tossed a ton of them, particularly the ones that didn't have people in them. Right. And at first it was hard, but then after a while it was kind of freeing.

[C]

It is freeing because there's what, less weight in your life emotionally and physically. But you know, that said, if there are photographs of say, say the 1950s or 60s photographs or slides, and it depicts your parents hometown, many of those businesses are gone and the local historical society might be interested in them.

[B]

Oh, great point. That's wonderful. So it could, it could do a lot of good to do some of the weeding.

[C]

It could do a lot of good.

[B]

Okay, so we've waded through our photos. Hopefully we've thinned out the playing field a little bit. And then that takes us to step number two, which you say is to scan your prints. Do you digitize all your photos?

[C]

Yeah, I'm working on my actual family photos. But you should label the real photos. It's sort of a multi step process and it's, you know, label you weed, you label, you scan. That's the three steps. So you label the real stuff, you scan them so that you have a digital backup copy. And as we are doing this interview, the state of California is being devastated by wildfires.

[B]

Yes.

[C]

If those people don't have their photos scanned and stored in a cloud based system or stored in the next step, which is the digital organizer, those images are gone. They're gone. So it is a good idea to scan your photos. Now do you have to scan each and every photo? Let's go Back to step one. Do you need 100 photographs of your cousin's wedding? Probably not. When we go on vacation, I don't really even try to take pictures anymore because my husband takes so many. And the first thing he does when we come home and is he weeds what he's taken. Something's a lot of focus. Maybe he's got three shots, he picks the best one. And we're really fond of digital picture frames. So we have a digital picture frame in our living room with all of our vacation photos. On it. And we sit there and we go, now, now, where was that? Because sometimes you don't always remember. Especially I wasn't. I'm not always with him when he's taking the pictures. So I'm like, where were you when you took that photograph of that building?

[B]

Yeah. Your husband may need to talk to my husband because he takes lots of pictures, but he, he doesn't weed out the four extras, you know, and that's the first thing, like you say I do that on the plane on the way home so that it kind of. Kind of thins things out. But I kind of like what you said, and I hadn't really thought about it. A digitization project does not need to be the whole thing. It's really having the end in mind, which is your kids and your grandkids, and they may not want and need all those. And think how much time that would save to not have to scan every single photo. I love that.

[C]

Yeah. How many pictures do you need to tell the story of an event? Yeah.

[B]

Oh, good point. Yes, absolutely. You mentioned a digital organizer, and that's your step number four. Tell us what those are and how you pick one.

[C]

So once you have things digitized and it's. I'm going to say right now it is a good idea to think about the digital organizers that are out there in the market. And I'm sure Family Tree magazine has an article, you know, examining them all. But when you first try them, only upload 15 to 30 photos and try them out first to see if they're compatible with the way that you think and you work, because they're all just a little bit different. I've been playing around with, you know, there's Memory Web, of course, which is a digital organizer created by genealogists for genealogists. And it's the only one that has back front linking. So, you know, you have information on the back. You scan them both. It's a good idea to label them. When you're scanning A and B front and back. And you do this, you come up with a system of working that you can stick to whatever works for you. But a digital photo organizer, something like Forever, for instance, is another one that people use, file shadow. I could name a million of them. There's so many. And just find one that works for you with your budget and the number of photos that you have.

[B]

Are they flexible in terms of they'll allow you to download the collection that you have once it's organized, or does the organization of it only kind of exist on their website.

[C]

Well, you can always export your photos.

[B]

Okay.

[C]

Yeah. Forever. They call themselves forever because they have a legacy program so that you sign somebody up to be your legacy contact so that you're not just uploading them to an app and then losing them. And, you know, we know this. We've been around for a while. Lisa, in this genealogy space, although we're not going to say how long. And company. Many companies have come and gone.

[B]

Yes, they have.

[C]

Right. So it's important to find one that has a good track record that you feel comfortable working with. Good customer service. I particularly like having my photos through an app on my phone and on my desktop. So I find it easier to work on my photos on my desktop. But I like having the accessibility on my phone. If I'm out with a cousin, I want to be able to hit that button, show them the photo. And some of these, you know, some of the genealogy companies, even Ancestry.com and MyHeritage.com have a way for you to upload photos. And then they're in your MyHeritage app or your Ancestry app, and you can record stories about those. You can actually put recordings with them, which is just.

[B]

It's tremendous how that it's evolving, the whole storytelling thing. So I love this.

[A]

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[B]

In the article. I know you talk about several of these organizing programs and I like your advice. Don't put everything in and then figure it out. Put a handful, see if it works with, like you say, the way your brain works. And then I would think we still want to keep the most precious physical items. So does that bring us to number five? You have gather supplies. I think we probably need really good preservation supplies to take care of them.

[C]

We do. So here's a horrifying reality That I hear about all the time when I do workshops. People will say to me, okay, I've scanned them, that means I can throw them away.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

And I go, no, no. And there's a number of organizers on social media who, you know, reinforce that idea. And I'm like, absolutely not. You need a few simple supplies to store your photos. Now you've weeded them, so you've gotten rid of stuff that you probably will never need. Or if you just can't part with them, you know, scan them first but then still weed.

[B]

Right.

[C]

You need things like acid free, lignin free storage containers. You need polyester sleeves for them. And it's up to you whether you want to put all of your prints in polyester sleeves or not. I mean, that could add up to quite a bit if you're looking at snapshots that you took in the 1960s or the 1970s. But for the older stuff, the stuff before your lifetime, I think it's worth putting them all in sleeves because if you're going to take them out and look at them and you will look at them again if you're a genealogist, because there's always something you've missed. Maybe you forgot to scan the back, maybe it cut off a couple of words when you scanned it and you didn't notice it right away. That will protect your images both from abrasion, but, but also your hands. If you've got hand cream on or, you know, we have oils on our hands all the time. So you just want to make sure that the good, the really old stuff is very protected.

[B]

Well, and I remember back years, probably 20 years ago, I was scanning some photos and I was doing them, I think as bitmap images or something. I wasn't getting them in the right format. And then formats change, you know, so the technology keeps changing, but those beautiful paper photos remain the same in the original condition. We always have that option to go back and do it again if we need to or you know, get a new version of it. So I, I like that idea of keeping particularly those really old ones, the originals. And there's products, I assume in the, in the article you've got a list. I know, I've used Gaylord. Do you have a favorite?

[C]

Gaylord. Gaylord's the long living company.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

Yes. Can't really do any better.

[B]

So we've got some supplies. Number six was to pick the right storage space. Oh, I hope I've got room in my house. Where do you suggest?

[C]

Well, not your garage, not in Texas, not in your garage. If you have a basement, likely not a basement and definitely not an attic because they all come with hazards. Right. Your garage, you're exposed to elements. Sometimes, you know, the temperature and humidity changes your car. Maybe you park your car in there, your basement has moisture, you can have flooding. The attic, the same thing, temperature and humidity. I look for a windowless closet in my house. Actually, I had cabinets built into my office for the storage of my family photos.

[B]

Oh, how nice.

[C]

Because I couldn't find exactly the right space in this house, so I had some cabinets built and they're all stored in there. That's what you're looking for, something where there's not going to be a lot of temperature and humidity fluctuation. Not near a water pipe, not near fireplace. You know, things like that, that make common sense.

[B]

So you're looking for a stable environment. And I imagine once you get all that digitizing done and you have them, you can work with them on your computers. Then we could put them up on those high spots where we don't get too very often that might be unused space. So it's not going to impact the closet too much.

[C]

Exactly. And you've stored them all in the proper suppl. And in the article I talk about format specific storage like daguerreotypes and slides and all of that. And those boxes and sleeves and things that you can buy from Gaylord. Give your photographs a buffer between the external temperature and humidity changes and what's happening in the box. So, yeah, you can put them up high.

[B]

Great.

[C]

Just don't put your glass negatives up high, that's all.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, that's probably a good point. And that takes us to the final step, which is to prepare for a disaster. What is one of your favorite ways to go about kind of making sure you've got the backups set up?

[C]

Well, you can buy a lot of supplies if you want. Things like blotting paper and things. And you can find instructions on how to use that. I mean, all areas of the country have some sort of disaster, right? I live on the East Coast. We periodically get hurricanes, we get blizzards. We even lately have been getting tornadoes. So there, there's a lot of stuff happening. You want to make sure that you. One, of course, have everything scanned, have everything stored. So if you, if that's the most important thing you want to grab that, you can just grab it and put it in your car and go. I know that those plastic tubs that you use for storage are not good for your Photos because they smell like plastic. But if you are going to get a flood and you can put your photos in those tubs for temporary reasons to protect them from things you want to make sure you know the number and the name of a local conservator, someone that can help you afterwards if there's a problem. Things like, you know, knowing where your shutoffs are for the house. Do you know where your water shut off is? Lisa?

[B]

We actually went on vacation once and a pipe broke while we were gone and we had to be able to tell the neighbor where the shutoff was. You know, I know one of my favorite things is I have a. A fire safe box. And so I have my scanned photos also on a terabyte hard drive and that's inside the fire safe box. So that would be the first thing to pick up and head out the door with.

[C]

Yep. So that you have something because maybe you have too many photographs. Maybe you have a lot of photographs, but again, you have a terabyte drive, so you can just grab that and go.

[B]

And I'm sure that the digital organizers, you know, in themselves should be backups. But I don't know about you, but I want multiple. I want control.

[C]

We all have a story early on in the sort of digital age in which we live. I was working on a book project and my computer crashed and it wasn't backed up. I had to rewrite the book.

[B]

Lisa, you only have to do that once, right?

[C]

Once I have multiple backups. I have like three backups. I think I use a Mac. So I have icloud and I have time machine. Then I have a digital organizer, you know, then I, you know, all that stuff. Multiples.

[B]

Well, any parting, encouraging words for the listeners who are thinking, okay, I've got my seven steps. Maybe I can tackle this. What would you say to them?

[C]

All right. It will take time, it will take patience. But when you're done, that sense of accomplishment and the. The sense that you have this done for the next generation will be amazing. And don't get discouraged. It is possible.

[B]

Sounds great. Well, again, Maureen's article is Photographic Memory. It's in the January, February issue of Family Tree magazine. And Maureen, they can meet you over@maureen taylor.com as well, can't they?

[C]

Maureentaylor.com and the photo Detective on all social media.

[B]

Awesome. It's always good to talk to you, my friend. Thank you for stopping by the podcast.

[C]

Always good to talk to you too, Lisa. Thanks.

[B]

Thanks for joining me for this episode.

[A]

Of the Family Tree magazine podcast. This is the show from America's number one genealogy magazine. I'll have links to everything that we've talked about today on the show over at the Show Notes page, and you can find [e-mail] podcast and there you'll also find a huge back catalog of past episodes full of topics that are going to help you in your genealogy research. And when you stop by the website, be sure to sign up for our free newsletter. That really is the perfect way to stay in touch with Family Tree Magazine and get all the latest and greatest news, plus the announcements of each and every new podcast episode. I'm Lisa Louise Cook, and I hope that you'll come by and visit me at my website, genealogy gems.com and there you will find the Genealogy Gems podcast and a link over to our Genealogy Gems YouTube channel. So until next time, have fun climbing your family tree.