Since you are enjoying the images on Footnote, you are probably like me.  You have a box or boxes full of photos and old documents somewhere in your home.  You keep them because you either love them or can’t bear to throw them away.   Again, you are probably like me and LOVE them.

Recently, while looking through a box of old photos that I inherited from my mother, I realized that I had treasure in my hands.  Of course, the old photos are ‘treasure’ when they are of my family and ancestors, but many of them are yet-to-be-discovered ‘treasures’ by the living families of the folks in the old photos.  I only needed a way to share the images with those families too.

Footnote!  Of course!   Many of the photos have writing on the backs giving the names of the people in the images.  Some have no names, only a print date and location.  All have a common thread though.  They belonged to my mother, her parents and grandparents and none of them lived farther than six miles from the location they were born, so I know approximately where the photos were taken.  When the date they were taken is unknown, I can compare the style of clothes with other photos on the box that have dates and determine an approximate date it was taken.

After scanning the photos and saving them to my hard drive with meaningful names rather a string of numbers and characters, I upload them to my member account on Footnote.  In most cases I Annotate the images with the names of the people on the photos and / or with the location and date or approximate date information and Spotlight the ones that seem to beg to be spotlighted.

Spotlighting allows them to immediately be seen by the Footnote community.  Additionally, Google indexes Footnote and hence, the odds of someone finding ‘treasure’ in the old photos is even greater.

Post your old ‘treasure’ photos to your member account on Footnote.   Share their wealth with the Footnote community and by extension, with the world.