Labeling Group Photos for Family History

Labeling Group Photos for Family History

Group photos are wonderful because they give you a good idea of ages and relationships between different people in your family tree. That being said, there are a couple of downsides. For one, they often get passed down without a clear list of who everyone in the photo is. The other downside is that people tend to gloss over faces when they’re together in a group photo so they only really “see” two or three people.

For this reason, I like to pull group photos apart (metaphorically! Drop the scissors!) and look at each person individually. One way to do this is to use the group photo page and give everyone their own portrait box so you can put details to each face.

 The other way I like to label group photos is by creating a rough outline of each person in the photo, numbering each of those outlines, and adding names and info that way. This allows you to get more information on one page and it makes you pay more attention to how everyone is placed in the photo.

All you need is some way to trace the photo. I use Goodnotes 5 by importing the photo to a blank document, using the pencil tool to draw a black outline around each person, and then deleting the photo out from underneath my new sketch. You could use any similar drawing program or you could even get out a piece of tracing paper and (carefully) trace the original photo that way.

I have seen a variation where someone greyed-out the original photo and added a number to each person instead of creating their own drawing. This will work better for some photos than others but it’s an excellent option if you don’t want to add a sketch to your book.

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