Genea-Blogger Games: 5th Update

The last update on "The Games" provided my status for all categories, this post will discuss what has been done since then... in category 3. Organize Your Research!

Current Status: Items B, C and E were previously completed. With these two, I've now earned a Platinum medal in this category!!

A. Organize at least 20 hard files or ancestral items (books, fabrics, inherited items) into file folders, boxes, envelopes, containers, etc.; archival-quality where appropriate.

The process of going through my research files and pulling out the documents and notes that pertain to my ancestors has been started. (My existing filing system, which I'm not happy with, is described in the fifth paragraph of this post, just in case you're curious.) The remaining documents will be separated and eventually organized into family groups. For now, I'm concerned only with the ancestor documents and info, which will also be scanned at some point in the future. I've just started this process but have pulled out more than 20 ancestral documents, put them into sheet protectors, and filed in the appropriate ancestor folder.

D. Organize at least 20 digital photos into folders, label, add metadata, add descriptions, add tags, etc.

As I've been scanning the family photos, the image files have been put into folders based upon who has possession of the original (mom, me, my brother, etc.). When scanned, the file names were composed of the year and person (or group) in the picture with a sequential number, if there was a series of pictures taken in the same year. Once I've entered the location/owner of the original then the files will be re-organized by surname and individual or group.

Using Windows XP, I selected one of the folders, which contained about 30 photos, and added the author (location of original), a title, subject, and comments to each picture, one at a time. What this has done for me is confirm that I definitely need to find a program (inexpensive and that I like) that will allow me to enter the image information in batch mode since some of the data will be the same for a large number of pictures.

Okay, now I have a question. . . If I add the image information to the file then edit the image, when I save it or save-as another filename, the information is lost. Is this normal? This was using an old version of PhotoImpact (version 4.2, which has worked well for me for a few years) as well as Paint Shop Pro 7, which is also a couple years old.