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Organizing family photos for genealogy: scans, surnames and folders that last

File family photos the way a genealogist files records: a folder for each surname, then each couple, then places and events inside it. Scan prints before you sort them, keep names and sources with the photo, and don't trust the date on a scan. Whatever you choose, use it the same way every time, and keep three copies.

Start with one family line

A lifetime of shoeboxes, albums, a cousin's CD and a parent's old laptop is too much to take on at once. Pick one surname, or one branch of it, and gather only those photos into one place: one box for the prints, one folder for the files. Finishing one line teaches you the system, and the next line goes faster.

Genealogist Lisa Lisson's six steps for organizing family photos are a good outline: commit, gather, digitize, edit if you want to, build the folders, then file. This page goes through the parts that are about files and folders.

Scan before you sort

Sorting files is quicker than sorting paper, and every print you scan is backed up.

  • Resolution: 600 dpi is the usual advice for ordinary prints, and more for small prints and slides you might want to enlarge.
  • Format: TIFF keeps every detail and makes a good master copy. JPEG is a fraction of the size and opens anywhere. Many people keep TIFF masters and share JPEGs.
  • Both sides: scan the back of any print that has writing on it. A name or a date in someone's handwriting is evidence in itself.
  • Borrowed photos: write down whose they are as you scan them, while you still remember. Some people put the owner's initials in the file name.

A flatbed scanner does the best job. Phone apps such as Photomyne are quicker for a large box and are good enough to share.

A folder structure that works for family history

Many genealogists set up photo folders the same way as their research files:

  1. Surname: Miller
  2. Head of household, with their spouse and the children still at home: Joseph & Anna Miller
  3. Place or event, only where there are enough photos to need it: 1952 wedding, Ohio farm

Three levels is plenty. Every extra level is another folder to open before you can see a photo, and a search can usually find a name faster than you can click down to it.

Two more folders do a lot of work:

  • Unidentified: photos you can't name yet. Take this folder to the next family gathering.
  • Not family: postcards, a neighbour's wedding. Keep them out of the family folders, but don't throw them out. They sometimes turn out to matter.

Naming: pick one formula and keep to it

A file name is the one label that stays with a photo wherever it is copied. A formula that works well for family history is year, who, where:

  • 1938 Anna Miller Licking Co Ohio.jpg
  • 1952 Miller wedding 03.jpg for a run of photos from one event

Any formula will do. What matters is using the same one every time, so that a search for 1938 or Anna Miller finds every match. When you only know roughly when a photo was taken, say so in the name the same way every time, for example ca 1940 or 1940s.

Don't trust the date on a scan

A digital camera records inside the file when each photo was taken. A scanner records when the scan was made. So a 1938 portrait scanned last Tuesday says last Tuesday, and any app that sorts by date taken will put it there: Apple Photos, a date-sorting app, or cullzy's own date folders.

So for scans, put the year in the folder name or the file name, where you control it, instead of relying on the file's date. Software that edits dates inside files exists, but a date like “about 1940” doesn't fit in the field.

Names, faces and sources

Photos can store keywords inside the file, and Lightroom, Bridge, digiKam and Spotlight all read the same ones. For family photos, keywords are where the information that won't fit in a name goes:

  • everyone in a group photo, one keyword per person;
  • where it came from: from Aunt Ruth;
  • what's still open: needs ID.

Keywords travel with the file. When you give a cousin a copy, the names go with it, and so does the credit for whoever lent you the print.

Duplicates from relatives

Once relatives start sending what they have, the same photo comes back several times: the copy you emailed them last year, a smaller version from a family group chat, their own scan of the same print. Keep the one with the most pixels and file the others in a folder of their own until you're sure. The other kinds of duplicate, and how to find them, are in how to find duplicate photos in folders.

Back it up, then share it

A collection that is only on one computer can be lost all at once. The usual rule is three copies, on two kinds of storage, with one kept somewhere else: the computer, an external drive, and either a cloud service or a drive kept at a relative's house. Pick a day each month to update the copies, and put it in your calendar.

Plain folders are also the easiest thing to share. A USB stick with Miller/Joseph & Anna Miller on it opens on any computer, needs no app and no account, and will still open when the app you sorted with is long gone.

Where cullzy fits

Cullzy is for the filing step: a folder of scans, one photo on screen at a time, and a key that moves it into the right folder.

  • Choose family history on its first screen and it starts the way a box of scans needs. It suggests piles such as Unidentified and Not family and no delete pile. Photos come up in folder order, not by a scan date that means nothing, and the screenshot and chat-forward offers stay out of the way.
  • A pile can be a folder inside a folder. Name one Miller/Joseph & Anna and that's the folder the photos go into.
  • The first nine piles are on the number keys. ⌘K files a photo into any pile by typing part of its name, or makes a new one, so a whole family tree of folders is still one keypress and a few letters away.
  • G adds keywords (the people, the source) to the photo on screen or to a whole selection, written into JPEG and HEIC files as keywords any photo app reads.
  • [ and ] turn a sideways JPEG scan upright without saving the picture again, so it loses nothing.
  • It shows when the same photo has been saved more than once, from relatives or from a chat app, and points out the copy with the most pixels.
  • It opens the formats old family archives tend to have, such as Kodak Photo CD images, DVD-Video files, MiniDV and camcorder clips, and old AVIs.
  • Nothing is deleted, and a move can be undone, even after quitting the app. Family photos don't need a delete pile at all.

Cullzy runs on Macs with Apple silicon, and a Windows version is coming. If you've never sorted photos with the keyboard before, how to sort thousands of photos into folders explains how it works, and the free ways to do it.

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