Since posting my query this morning I've rec'd a number of suggestions on how to preserve photos. A useful link sent is to "Photo Generations - home to PhotoGen, the original email discussion list that caters to the family photography historian and enealogist (http://www.city-gallery.com/photogen/). It has been suggested that old photos should never be photocopied since the UV light will accelerate deterioration. Instead a photographic copy should first be made and then either duplicate via the negative or photocopy the copy of the original print. -- Malcolm Schalick Sharp http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~msharp http://www-rcf.usc.edu/~sharp BaggyGenes wrote: > > Good idea, Dave -- here's another one. I have a number of old photographs and several small painting of 19th C. relatives. I made color xeroxes of them (some of the smaller ones, I even had blown up) and sent > them out to other relatives, asking for ID -- got an amazing number of them identifed, plus the recipients had, if not the greatest picture in the world, at least something they could tuck in the family album. > > Judy > > "David C. Allegretti" wrote: > > > Hello all, > > > > What I did with the old pictures of my family that I had no idea who they were...(They were in a DEEMS family album, from MD to NYC c1834). > > > > With a 35mm camera, tripod, & close up lens...I made pictures of the pictures. > > > > This gives you a negative with which I made copies and sent to relatives of that family. Those pictures I sent out went all over the US and some of the other family members were able to Identify some of them.. > > > > Don't forget that some of those pictures were used as "business cards" so-to-speak. When a person came-a callin' they would hand you a small picture of themselves as if to say remember I was here. > > > > Best of luck. > > > > Dave > > > > By the way...I'm searching GENTRY & HECTOR families from Salem. Gloucester, & Cumberland Co's., NJ