Thank you, Bill Moore, Cynthia Boatright Raleigh, Faith Van Wart, Lynda HeinesLinda Teather, and so many more for joining us today. Your support, encouragement, and feedback keep us going. Drop a ❤️ below to help these programs reach a larger audience.

As Projectkin, we’re hooked on family history stories. So often, these stories start with the stuff left for us by our ancestors. In Kathy’s Corner, it helps us sort through and make sense of our collections of photographs, documents, and other artifacts. Her decades of experience as a professional photo organizer give her special insight into the field. See upcoming events here.

Did a friend share this post? Fantastic! Learn more about Projectkin and join our community of family historians hooked on stories. Projectkin.org/about.

We were delighted to welcome Maureen Taylor as our special guest. As a former curator at a historical society, Maureen knows how to make sense of photographs and family history. As she puts it, her skills are at the junction of history, genealogy, and photography. You can follow Maureen on her YouTube channel here. Kathy referenced just two of her many well-known books; you’ll find more books, courses, and tools on her website.

* Preserving Your Family Photographs

* Family Photo Detective 2023

Maureen’s talents make her the perfect person to discuss metadata, a long-time challenge for genealogists and photo organizers.

Today’s discussions covered a range of topics from

* A basic introduction to the term and its history in photography.

* The conflict between the metadata use case for genealogists and the privacy exposure it creates for use in social media.

Resources Mentioned

Maureen’s posts & publications

* Metadata playlist on YouTube

Organizations & specifications

* The International Press Telecommunications Council — IPTC.org

* Photo Metadata IPTC Standard

* Exchangeable Image File Format (EXIF) Family summary from the US Library of Congress

Tools and platforms that leverage image metadata for genealogists

* Vivid-Pix

* Adobe Bridge

* Mylio

* Forever

Platforms for comparing images without the use of metadata

* From Google

* Images.Google.com (drag-and-drop image file to search)

* Google Lens (works in Chrome and Google Photos mobile app)

* Tineye.com

Privacy Issue in Image Metadata

A summary of privacy concerns when data is included with images shared on social media has spawned a series of platforms to strip metadata from images. There are a variety of these tools online, including Metadata2go, and PrivacyStrip, to name just two.

Learn more about Kathy’s Coaching.

As Projectkin, we’re here to help families tell their stories in any form. I feel strongly that our collections of photos and other artifacts are key to our memories and, in turn, our stories.

Have a friend who may benefit from this? Please share it and invite them to join us,

Date change: Our usual date for Kathy’s Corner in November coincides with American Thanksgiving. A month later, it lands on Christmas Day. To work around that, we’ll combine our November and December programs into a special Kathy’s Corner event on December 5.

Our program on December 4th will be a special interactive program titled “Postcards: Pictures, Stories, Art, and History.” Bring your postcard and story, and tell us about it!

If you can bring a postcard, please let Kathy know so she can adjust our timing so everyone can participate.

Thank you, Bill Moore , Linda Teather, Erin Hoover, Jennifer Jones, Anne Matuszak and so many more for joining us today. Today we enjoyed a lively conversation after Kathy’s presentation, including the contribution of two sample photos by Anne Matuszak, see below.

As Projectkin, we’re hooked on family history stories. So often, these stories start with the stuff left for us by our ancestors. In Kathy’s Corner, Projectkin contributor Kathy Stone, helps us sort through and make sense of these materials with insights from her decades of professional photo organizer experience. Explore our calendar for upcoming events here.

Was this post shared with you? Fantastic! Learn more about Projectkin and join our community of family historians hooked on stories. Projectkin.org/about.

Notes

Disaster does strike; we know it will; we just don’t know when and where. In today’s tactical episode, Kathy takes us through the gritty work of handling those damaged photos and artifacts.

Safety First!

Kathy mixes her guidance on handling the photos with tips on personal hazards like

* Mold (or Mould)

* Unknown chemicals

* Fire residue

You may not know what to expect, but you can be prepared. Kathy’s offered suggestions for the kinds of things your might want to set aside in a Recovery Kit:

* Freezer Bags for wet, but clean photos you can’t handle yet.

* Wax or parchment paper to place objects to dry without risk of sticking.

* Marker and paper for notes, such as to associate photos with envelopes.

* A knife or boxcutter to disassemble an album.

* Gloves to protect yourself from mold or unknown chemicals.

* Breathing mask (N95 or respirator) to protect yourself from mold and fetid material from floods or other disasters.

A special guest of Kathy’s, Anne Matuszak shared two interesting photos during the session that helped illustrate both the damage that can occur:

To illustrate a drying technique using an ad hoc clothes line method built from ladders, Anne shared this example:

Resources

* What to Do When Disaster Strikes Your Photos by Kathy Stone

* How to Remove Your Pictures from Magnetic Photo Albums by Good Life Photo Solutions • goodlifephotosolutions.com/magnetic-photo-albums

* Multi-Purpose Tool for handling photos creativememories.ca/multi-purpose-tool.html

* Flattening Curled Photos by Chaos to Memories

* Photo Tutorial: How to Relax and Rehumidify Old Rolled Photographs and Documents by the Family Curator • thefamilycurator.com/photo-tutorial-how-to-relax-and-rehumidify-old-rolled-photog

* I Have Smelly Family Photos. Now What? By Familytree Magazine familytreemagazine.com/preservation/photos-preservation/smelly-family-photos

As Projectkin, we’re here to help families tell their stories, in any form. I feel strongly that our collections of photos and other artifacts are key to our memories and, in turn, our stories.

If you know someone who may benefit from Kathy’s presentation, please do share it and invite them to join us in this community.

As you explore this episode, you may also want to explore the many posts on Kathy’s own publication, Kathy's Coaching.

Thank you Bill Moore, Linda Teather, Marci Keats Rudolph 🇨🇦, Erin Hoover and so many more for joining us today.

As Projectkin, we’re hooked on family history stories. So often, these stories start with the stuff left for us by our ancestors. In Kathy’s Corner, Projectkin contributor Kathy Stone, helps us sort through and make sense of these materials with insights learned in her decades of experience as a professional photo organizer. Explore our calendar for coming events here.

Was this post shared with you? Join us and get this and all of our program recordings directly in your inbox! Projectkin.org/about

For many of us, handling personal archives is tricky. Not only do we have to keep track of those endless utilitarian photos, we’re also master archivists for our extended family. To sort through all of that, you now have the company of friends (Projectkin) and the expertise of a pro, Kathy Stone.

Today, Kathy walked us through the simple terms you’ll often hear tossed around with an assumption that we all know what we’re talking about. Well… that’s not always true — and we often have slightly different meanings for the terms we use.

The goal here isn’t to agree on the terms, necessarily. Instead, we want to help you understand how the terms are used to ensure that you can plan a workflow for your own materials. At the end of the day, the most important thing is that you never lose these precious archives. It’s also pretty nice when you can find exactly what you’re looking for when you need it.

In this recording, Kathy’s asked questions like:

* Should you Sync a Legacy collection?

* How much should be in a Legacy Collection?

You’ll see that the answers to these questions are not always as straightforward as you might think.

In the recording, Kathy mentioned an example of a Legacy Collection - this one is public:

* forever.com/app/users/john-a-jack-snyder

Legacy and archive may have subtle differences that matter in how they’re used by backup and sync are by no means the same. Kathy’s recommended this article as background:

* proton.me/blog/backup-vs-sync

She also talked about the classic mnemonic: The ABC's of Photo Organizing: A—Album, B—Box, C—Can (trash), and S—Stories. Here’s The Photo Managers articulation of the strategy:

* thephotomanagers.com/the-abcs-of-photo-organizing

Finally, Kathy referenced Ann Larkham of Photogenealogy and the approach she’s used for these terms. Here’s a summary she shared as a pdf:

* Ann Larkham’s Photogenealogy Terminology

As a tip to next month’s focus Kathy is actively participating in The Photo Managers annual Save Your Photos Month. As part of that program, Kathy has shared her affiliate link to their programming, most of which is entirely free during the month of September.

* thephotomanagers.ontralink.com/t?orid=557&opid=43

Do you have questions for Kathy or other members of the community, drop them in the chat below and let’s keep this conversation going. I know I have a good idea for an archiving project I should have done a while ago. 🤭 No time like the present!

As Projectkin, we’re hooked on family history stories. So often, these stories start with the stuff left for us by our ancestors. In Kathy’s Corner, Projectkin contributor Kathy Stone, helps us sort through and make sense of these materials with insights learned in her decades of experience as a professional photo organizer. Explore our calendar for coming events here.

Was this shared with you? Welcome! Learn more about our community at Projectkin.org/about. Then, join us!

Managing expectations can be the key to sticking with your goals of organizing and maintaining your family photo collection. Today’s lively and wide-ranging conversation included:

* Projects vs. Operational Discipline (perhaps a program or process).

* How to manage projects delivered in digital form.

* How a digital archive such as WeAre.xyz might differ from a photo archive.

* How terms can vary and why you want to be very clear about how you’re handling:

* Your personal photo backups (such as from your mobile devices)

* Your scanned photo collection and how they are backed up, archived, and flow through notations for correcting dates, edits, or metadata

* A hub of your photos and how that’s backed up and archived

* Completed projects are archived

* How a family legacy collection might differ from your photo collection.

Kathy also shared a few tools she’s been using in a section we called “Kathy’s Confessions” 😉

* The “where you are on your projects” survey that Kathy mentioned from her publication:

* Kathy’s Google Sheet with tabs to help manage the stages of a scanning project. (That’s free for you to use.)

As you explore this episode, you may also find Kathy’s notable post

Many thanks to our active participants today, including Ann Larkham, Linda Teather, Jane Chapman, and Bill Moore among others. Your contributions added to the richness of today’s conversation, thank you.

As Projectkin, we’re hooked on family history stories. So often, these stories start with the artifacts, documents, and photographs left for us by our ancestors. In Kathy’s Corner, Projectkin contributor Kathy Stone, helps us sort through and make sense of these materials with insights learned in her decades of experience as a professional photo organizer. Explore our calendar for coming events here.

If this was shared with you, why not join our free community? Learn more at Projectkin.org/about.

Today, Kathy dove into some of the most basic challenges of our artifact collections: acquiring the photos and using the ones in our possession. We may own the physical prints or digital files, but do we have the copyright? If we don’t know who does, how do we get permission?

Today’s episode builds on a tip for Mission: Genealogy, by Deborah Carl“Copyright and Images.” (You’ll find a long list of resources in that post and more tips in this series at MissionGenealogy.org/tips).

During her talk, Kathy Stone referenced numerous external articles and legal summaries, including:

Copyright Laws by Country

* United Kingdom — legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1988/48/contents

* Canada — laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/C-42/Index.html

* United States — copyright.gov/title17

* New Zealand — legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1994/0143/latest/DLM345634.html

* Australia — legislation.gov.au/C1968A00063/2019-01-01/text

Electronic Frontier Foundation: Advocacy

* Fair Use Topics — eff.org/issues/intellectual-property

* “The Public Domain Is the Rule, Copyright Is the Exception” — eff.org/deeplinks/2020/01/public-domain-rule-copyright-exception

OrganizingPhotos.Net

* “Can I Scan that Photo – Legally? Understanding Copyright and Fair Use” by Jackie Jade — Organizingphotos.net/scan-photo-legally-copyright-fair-use

The Legal Genealogist on Copyright

* LegalGenealogist.com/category/copyright

* “Copyright and the old family photo” — LegalGenealogist.com/2012/03/06/copyright-and-the-old-family-photo

* “Copyright and the genealogy lecture” — bit.ly/4loa578

Open Media

* “The Shrӧdigner’s cat of copyright: What is an ‘orphan work’”— bit.ly/4kWQr2b

Wilders & Co, Content Management Systems

* “Who Cares About Copyright Infringement Laws” by Regan Wilders — linkedin.com/pulse/who-cares-copyright-infringement-laws-regan-wilders

Langara College Library

* “Copyright for Photography” — langara.libguides.com/copyright-for-photography/canada

As Projectkin, we’re hooked on family history stories. So often, these stories start with the artifacts, documents, and photographs left for us by our ancestors. In Kathy’s Corner, Projectkin contributor Kathy Stone, helps us sort through and make sense of these materials with insights learned in her decades of experience as a professional photo organizer. Explore our calendar for coming events here.

If this was shared with you, why not join our free community? Learn more at Projectkin.org/about

We were thrilled by another richly informative hour with Kathy. Today’s focus was on the artifacts and mementos we inherit in our family collections that relate to experiences during periods of war. Kathy shared several examples from her own collection.

Stay tuned for a very special program coming up in the first week of June that drills into this topic, featuring Jennifer Holik of Soul Traveler, “War Stories & Healing Paths,” on Thursday, June 5th.

Resources

Identifying military artifacts and their history tends to be regional or specific to service branches. To help you research the history behind artifacts in your family collection, Kathy shared a number of resources she’s aware of.

If you have others, please drop them in the comments to share with others in our community.

National Archives UK

UK National Archives » Research Guides

* British Army Soldiers in service after 1918

www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/help-with-your-research/research-guides/british-army-soldiers-in-service-after-1918

Library and Archives of Canada

* Military Pages at the Library and Archives of Canada

library-archives.canada.ca/eng/collection/research-help/military-heritage/Pages/military-heritage.aspx

US National Archives

* US National Archives

www.archives.gov/research/military

The Internet Archive

* Search for “Military” or drill down further

archive.org/search?query=Military

Other References

Kathy’s Ship-in-a-Bottle story

* As shared in Martie McNabb’s Show & Tale series.

Military History Substacks

These are just a few examples.

* Canada's Military History

* From Paul Chiddicks whose popular blog at ChiddicksFamilyTree.com is blended with his active Substack at ChiddicksFamilyTree.

* My Favorite Find: A Hero’s Medals Saved by Chance

* In his post, Hidden Treasures: Preserving the stories behind family heirlooms, Paul referenced the pin cushion and mystery photo belonging to Projectkin member Ann Larkham we talked about in today’s program.

chiddicksfamilytree.com/2024/12/19/hidden-treasures-preserving-the-stories-behind-family-heirlooms. As Paul shares in the post, these are:

* A pin cushion with the insignia of The Royal Fusiliers.

* The photograph of a serving soldier of the Royal Fusiliers—a man who likely crafted the cushion with his own hands

Image Evaluation Tools

We’ve talked about many of these in different events, but Kathy’s reference to her Ship-in-a-Bottle story and the nearby Prisoner of War camp in western Canada sent me to dig up:

* Picarta.ai: A nifty tool with a 3-per-day free plan that gives you the GPS coordinates with a degree of confidence for any photograph that includes known landmarks.

* Related Faces: A software platform that gives you a new way to identify unknown family members in your photos. Our software isolates and maps faces and then compares them to reveal previously unknown connections.

* WWII Prisoner of War Camps: Since this was new to me, I thought you might find it interesting as well. Wikipedia includes a remarkable listing of prisoner-of-war camps worldwide.

Finally, as Kathy hinted at the conclusion of today’s program, she’ll be joining me again on Sunday at 2/5 PM PT/ET, 10 PM BST for my weekly Substack Live program to tip her hand to a special announcement. Join us!

As Projectkin, we’re hooked on family history stories. So often, these stories start with the artifacts, documents, and photographs left for us by our ancestors. In Kathy’s Corner, Kathy Stone, Projectkin member and long-time contributor, helps us sort through and make sense of these materials with insights learned in decades of experience as a professional photo organizer. Explore recordings of past episodes here, and our calendar for coming events here.

Learn more at Projectkin.org/about, and join the conversation and inspiration — free!

Our discussion today built on a challenge Kathy introduced in January 2025 related to the mystery photos in everyone’s collections. In parts 1-3, Kathy stepped through different ways to explore our photos using:

* Knowledge about photography technologies, and photographers (part 1);

* Information about physical elements of photos (part 2); and

* Elements captured in the photograph (part 3).

⮕ Here are links to those first three parts:

Today, we turned to timelines as an external tool to use to explore our photo collection. As you’ll see in the discussion and resources below, this led to an inspiring conversation about new ways to tell stories.

Resources for Timelines in Family Photo Organizing

Templates & Tools

Cyndi’s List

* www.cyndislist.com/timelines

* www.cyndislist.com/timelines/templates

Family Tree Magazine

* familytreemagazine.com/research/genealogy-timeline

Ancestories: Stories of My Ancestors Miriam Robbins

* ancestories1.blogspot.com/2014/02/tuesdays-tip-timelines.html

How to Create a Timeline in Excel by John Wittwer

* www.vertex42.com/ExcelArticles/create-a-timeline.html

Grid Timeline or Research Logs

Goldenrod Genealogy

* goldenrodgenealogy.com/timeline_grid.htm

Interactive Timeline

Northwestern University Knight Lab

* From the Knight Lab program for journalists at Northwestern: Knightlab.northwestern.edu, specifically the TimelineJS tool, timeline.knightlab.com

This TimelineJS tool was the basis for the Lafayette Timeline Project Recipe from April 2025 and includes templates for using TimelineJS.

Projectkin is all about our members, family historians hooked on stories. We’re on a mission to help families tell their stories in any way that works for them. Preserve your family archive and share the stories that make it so important. Tap below to join us for our May program at Kathy’s Corner.

Family history is a team sport; why not share this recording with your family and friends? More at Projectkin.org/about

Today’s episode opened with an exploration of Kathy’s process, reflecting on a massive project she embarked on over years for an aging client in Calgary with tens of thousands of images capturing personal events and business interactions. Our discussion today built on parts 1 and 2, which she covered in January and February:

With the focus of a campaign director, she and her client taped the room with paper organized into a family tree and a collective timeline. The idea was to capture all information they could find to be readily accessible as questions came up in examining, identifying, and curating photos. Examples she gave included:

* How family members were related and when they were born.

* Notable dates in the family, such as holidays celebrated, anniversaries, etc.

* Where the family lived and when (if they moved, all of which also implies seasonal clothing differences).

* Where they vacationed (such as a summer home).

* Sports favored and played or practiced.

* Subtle details like when/if kids wore braces can be helpful in identifying photos.

Structured plainly on a timeline, this detail can unlock puzzles and connect storylines.

Resources

About Photo Technologies

* About Lantern Slides: The US National Parks Service www.nps.gov/yose/blogs/curious-matters-the-hocus-pocus-history-of-glass-lantern-photography.htm

Dating Photos by Content

* Dating vintage photos by clothing & hairstyles: links to online resource by date

* www.sheknows.com/living/articles/814584/genealogy-research-datingvintage-photographs-by-clothing-and-hairstyles-1

* www.legacytree.com/blog/womens-fashion-date-old-photos

* blog.nationalarchives.gov.uk/how-to-date-family-photographs

* How to Identify Old Cars in Photographs

* lisalouisecooke.com/2017/12/27/how-to-identify-old-cars-in-photographs

* Canadian Military Uniforms

* www.canadiansoldiers.com/index.htm

* US Military Uniforms

* www.defense.gov/Multimedia/Experience/Common-Threads/Common-Threads-Army

Useful Reference Books

* Maureen Taylor, The Photo Detective

* MaureenTaylor.com

* Maureen Taylor’s book collection:

* MaureenTaylor.com/product-category/books

* Kathy’s favorites among Maureen’s books

* Family Photo Detective: Learn to Find Genealogy Clues in Old Photos and Solve Family Photo Mysteries (also available as an ebook)

* Hairstyles 1840-1900

* Fashionable Folks: Bonnets and Hats, 1840-1900

* Adam Pratt’s book

* Memories: A Visual Guide to Your Photos and Videos by Adam Pratt

Projectkin is about our members, a community of family historians hooked on stories. We’re on a mission to help families tell their stories in any way that works for them. Preserve your family archive and share the stories that make it so important. Tap below to join us for our April program at Kathy’s Corner.

We’d love to have you join our events and our community. It’s free. Learn more: Projectkin.org/about

Today’s program was one of those epic episodes that will become a reference to you in the weeks and months to come—as the perfect complement, Kathy Stone added a long list of resources to include here in the notes.

After Kathy’s core presentation, she opened up the discussion. Emily Hanson stepped up to share a delightful example of a family mystery photo and was gracious enough to allow us to share it here.

Since we were having such a good time exploring old photos with our new skills, Emily followed up with another example of a family photo including a border. What does this border tell us about the probable date for the image? And the dog, what breed?

Resources

The Village at Blackcreek: Good Overview of History of Photography

* blackcreek.ca/photography-history/

Fort Lewis College: Information for determining Dates of US Postcards

* fortlewis.edu/finding_aids/images/M194/PostcardDating.htm#Box

Cindi’s List: a list of helpful websites for dating photos

* cyndislist.com/photos/dating

Stamp Community: Photographs and Revenue Stamps

* stampcommunity.org/topic.asp?topic_id=78839&whichpage=1

Lisa Lisson (Are You My Cousin?) on Tax Stamps

* lisalisson.com/how-to-date-photographs-using-tax-stamps/

Film Format and Sizes

* photomemorabilia.co.uk/Colour_Darkroom/Early_Kodak_CameraFilm.html

Old Negative Film & Camera Formats

* nostalgicmedia.com/blogs/media-conversion/guide-to-negative-film-camera-formats

Deckle Edge

* rshare.library.torontomu.ca/articles/thesis/Snapshots_with_an_edge_a_study_of_the_deckle_edge_in_the_North_American_snapshot/14647395?file=28127568

Photo Borders

* flickr.com/groups/elko_borders_on_bw_photos/pool/

Eastman Museum Collections Online (advance search)

* eastman.org/collections-online

Evolution of the Kodak Logo

* designhill.com/design-blog/history-of-evolution-of-the-kodak-logo/

My Heritage PhotoDater

* myheritage.com/help-center?a=What-is-PhotoDatertm-and-how-does-it-work---id--kRRrmbewQUyybCKZB-SYHw

Was this post shared with you? Subscribe and get our recordings sent directly to your inbox. Learn more Projectkin.org/about

Kathy’s Corner is Projectkin’s longest-running series. It features Kathy Stone, a professional archivist and photo organizer with a unique perspective to family history storytelling. From the start, she’s focused on photo organizing with an eye toward the foundational family history stories they hide.

You are always welcome to share these recordings and detailed notes. If you enjoy them, we hope you will return to join the community and learn more.

In earlier episodes, Kathy took a methodical approach through each of the eight steps in her process featured in this post from late 2023:

She’s starting 2025 with practical applications of carefully sorted, scanned, and archived photos to explore the stories they have to tell. To get to the creamy tale in the middle, sometimes it’s helpful to start from what you can deduce.

Here are some of Kathy’s tricks:

Estimate the Date by Identifying the Type

“Good enough” estimates of dates can go a long way to getting you started. Identifying your family photographs starts with identifying what type they are. Types are generally defined by the technologies available when the photo was taken, so it can reveal the era in which it was taken. Once you know the era, it can be easier to identify the people, place, or occasion in a photo.

To help with that, Kathy included several useful tools:

* PhotoTree.com

* Identifying and Dating 19th-Century Photographs (PhotoTree)

* Science and Media Museum, “How to Spot a Cabinet Card”

* Ancestral Findings: Identifying the Era of a Photo By its Type

Ask the Photographer

In markings on or around a print, you’ll often also find indications of the photographer's name, address, or location. The venerable Cindi’s List site includes an extensive list of photographer identification sites:

* Cindi’s List: Identifying Photographers

One expert in dating and estimating photos is Maureen Taylor, who draws on resources from fashion and technology.

* Maureen Taylor, The Photo Detective. She has a popular podcast and blog and is the author of “Identifying Family Photographs” available at her site with consultations and other books.

Special Cases for Postcards

If “real photo” postcards are in your collection, you might appreciate the detail at Playle with guidance on

* How to Identify and Date Real Photo Vintage Postcards - paper name,production dates and stamps.

* Don’t miss the “Quick Reference Real Photo Old Postcard Dating Guide”

Special Guest: Hazel Thornton

With that as background, Kathy introduced us to the author, photo organizer, and family historian Hazel Thornton. Hazel is the author of “What’s a Photo Without the Story: How to Create Your Family Legacy?”

Hazel shared her journey, which began with an intriguing photo in her collection. With a little detective work, she identified the subject and location. In her book, she takes you through the story.

* You can reach Hazel directly via email here, or at her website, org4life.com, where you’ll also find her other published works, including:

* Hung Jury: The Diary of a Menendez Juror

* Go With the Flow! The Clutter Flow Chart Workbook

We hope you enjoyed today’s program as much as we did in today’s “live studio audience.” To learn more about the programs each month, please visit our event calendar at

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