Sourcing Digital Images

Have you ever gone through your stash of digital photos that you found online and then wondered, "Where the heck did this one come from?" Well, I have. When I was new to genealogy, my sister told me to keep very careful track of my sources. I naively thought it surely wasn't that big of a deal. I was dead wrong! It is one of the most important aspects of our research! It's one thing when you're just starting out and you only have a few things saved onto your computer, but that's not always going to be the case. Once you get hooked on genealogy your files will increase exponentially!  It's important to keep good recording habits from the start!

I thought I'd take a couple of minutes this morning to share a tip that changed so much about my genealogy world, for the better. Maybe ya'll already know about this, but for those that don't... There's an easy way for Windows users (I don't know about Mac) to attach a web address or little note to a photo, or to a document image. I use this method all the time! I will start with how to save an image off of a webpage.

1) Download the image, name it and save it into your digital filing system on your computer. Often this is as simple as right-clicking and choosing "Save Image As". One some website there might be a download button to click instead.

2) Choose a file location and a name for your image, and click "Save".

3) Highlight the URL of the wepage from which the image was downloaded, and copy the address. This can be done by right-clicking over the highlighted text and choosing "Copy", or by doing Control C.

4) Go to the file into which your download image has been saved. Right-click on the image and choose "Properties".

5) When the "Properties" menu pops up, choose "Title". Click inside the "Title" box, then right-click and choose "Paste", or else do Control V. This pastes the web address into the "Title" box. Then click "OK". The web source is now attached to the image! If the photo did not come from the internet, you can, instead, type in the original source. (Example - Shared by Grandma Britton) The point is that somewhere we need to easily have access to where each image came from.

6) Any time you need to retrieve this source, simply right-click on the images again, choose "Properties" and then "Title", and view the web address or other source there. From this point you can copy and paste this into an email or whatever, if needed. Then just click "Cancel" on the "Properties" menu to close it.

And there you have it! Now you will never again have to wonder where those photos or documents came from. The source will be easily accessible at a glance! The exception would be if a webpage is taken down, so that you end up with a useless broken link, which occasionally happens. For the bulk of your files, however, this technique can be very useful.

Thanks for stopping by! I hope this little article has been helpful. We are all in this together, and the more we can help each other, the farther we will all progress in our research. Have a great day!