Frustrating Record Keeping

The other day my sister brought over a box of old photos that our parents gave her and we scanned the contents of the box. My sister and I (wo)manned one scanner and the better-half and one of our nieces manned the other scanner. The project took a few hours just to get all the photos scanned and my sister helped with guessing dates when there were no dates listed on the photos. I think the record keeping gene must skip a generation. I have it, but my mother did not.

My mother was a total slacker when it came to marking photos. My paternal grandmother was a bit better but today when I got out old yearbooks to attempt to identify school pictures most of the dates my grandmother scribbled on the backs of photos just don’t line up with the yearbooks. How in the heck does that happen?

For instance, here’s a picture of me (in front) and a bunch of kids. We have no idea who any of these kids are. Not one face registered with us and yet they were in our backyard with me:

A note on the back would have been nice. I joked with my sister that the next time I see our mother I’m going to give her a piece of my mind about the lack of notes. Of course that conversation will have to be at a seance or on some sort of astral plane.

At some point when I muster the endurance, I’m going to scan the boxes of photos we have in our guest bedroom closet. It’s a boatload of photos and they are in no logical order. At least I’ll have an easier time with dates, places and people since nearly all of the photos we had printed back in the early years of our relationship were date stamped on the back–thank you photo processing place.

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