Remembering Our Ancestors in the Photos Library
CELEBRATE YOUR FAMILY LEGACY EVERY DAY
For most of my life, Halloween has been an excuse to dress up and go house-to-house collecting treats. When our kids left for college the event became more of a spectator sport and eventually adult costume parties with other empty nesters. It was an entertaining diversion from the shortening days of Fall. A lightweight in the holiday calendar.
But one Halloween our son, having moved to L.A., reached out for photos of our late parents and relatives. He’d seen the Pixar movie, Coco, that showcases Día de los Muertos - the Mexican Day of the Dead celebration - and was moved by the tradition of a small photo gallery of family ancestors. He wanted to create one of his own.
It was easy enough to dive into my Photos Library and send him the old photos he wanted, because they’d been scanned and cataloged. He sent us a picture of his bedroom shelf with all the family photos framed and displayed where he could see them. For a young guy a long way from home, it was a comforting family connection.
For me, his request recalibrated my appreciation of the Halloween season as still something fun, but much more meaningful - a rich, annual touchpoint of our family history.
We are not a big family, and we haven’t kept up with relatives as much as we might have over the years, an embarrassing admission from the son of an amateur genealogist. But having our old family photos scanned and dated is a great start to rebuilding the connections and honoring our family’s journey.
The thing is that you don’t have to wait all year for that celebration if you have all your photos in a single library. This is the benefit of a digital collection. In Apple Photos, all the pictures of everyone, over many decades, are available at a moment’s notice if you do some preparation and know how to find them.
Properly dated photos place them chronologically in your Photos Library. You can go directly to a year or skim through the Library. Bad dates are common when importing pictures from an internet gallery or as an email/text attachment. With scanned photos it’s guaranteed. Even if you are unsure about the exact date of a photo, assign it a date that’s your best guess. It’s better than having it floating around in your Library at time where you would never look for it. You can always change it later if you need to. Choose an arbitrary date in summer or in winter if the photo looks like a specific season.
Use People and Pets to identify and tag ancestors wherever they show up in your collection. Since we’re talking about people, identifying your legacy family members ensures that even if other metadata is wrong, you can distill your search down to the person’s photos wherever they are. Face recognition has become astonishingly good over the last couple years, so Apple Photos should capture the picture of an ancestor at any age.
Add any available information to the Captions field in the Photos Information dialogue. Descriptions of an event or notes on the people depicted can be invaluable and add rich context to the information. This information stays with the picture, like notations on the back of a print, and is searchable, just like names and dates.
Location rounds out the primary options for metadata. Like dates, it doesn’t have to be precise. You can type in a city name or geographical place and Photos will tag it.
A final option is Keywords. Useful if you have a short, consistent list of categories or groups to identify. Popular with genealogists, Keywords are great for tagging family hierarchies and identifying relationships. Keywords, though, are specific to the Mac version of Photos and can’t be added or searched on with the iPhone or iPad.
Be sure to include videos in the process, too. Home movies and videos, when digitized, can offer some of the richest experiences of all. Hearing voices and seeing a moment unfold is priceless. Apple Photos can even find people in motion media once you set up the face identification in People & Pets.
Note that all of this metadata can be edited as desired. You can also copy and paste data to a group of pictures at one time. When you take it a year at a time you can update your legacy photos faster than you might think.
One last thing.
It may be tempting to create a separate Library or Collection of your family’s legacy photos, either to reduce clutter or to save storage space. But if you do, you risk missing one of the most delightful features of the Apple Photos ecosystem - Memories.
In terms of delightful experiences, the Photos generated Memory Movies and the related Featured Photos feed are hands-down winners. Based on your activity and some secret sauce, Memory Collections are generated from your whole history of pictures, often delivering forgotten moments from long ago in delightfully themed groups. Featured Photos are more random, but just as fun. Adding the Photos Widget to my Home Screen guarantees at least one smile a day. Including at least a sampling of family legacy photos will enrich both experiences.
You can even go full circle and create a new photo book to replace that tattered family album. It can include printed captions, maps, and a family tree to share with your kids, when they ask. Or a Ken Burns style slide show.
So pull out those old family albums, slide carousels, and print boxes. Have them digitized and add metadata to make them accessible and part of your primary photo collection. Then when your kids start asking about the family history you’ll have the answers at your fingertips.
Paul
P.S. My daughter just started a college Masters course that incorporates family genealogy and she’s reached out for pictures as well.
I’ve got that covered.
Online Photo Book Workshop
🎄 Let’s Make a Photo Book for the Holidays
Every year around this time, I look at my camera roll and think: I really should make a photo book.
A year’s worth of memories - birthdays, travel, family, quiet moments - all sitting in my Photos Library, waiting for a little attention.
If that sounds familiar, this might be just what you need.
Starting November 7, I’m hosting a 2-week Online Photo Book Workshop - a friendly, guided experience that will help you actually finish a photo book in time for the holidays.
Together, we’ll turn that “someday” project into something real - a beautiful, printed book you can hold in your hands, share with family, or wrap up as a heartfelt gift.
Here’s what’s included:
📘 Kickoff Lesson (Live & Recorded) – A one-hour overview of the full process: collecting photos, choosing layouts, and placing your order.
💬 Two Q&A Sessions – Get personal help and inspiration as you design your book.
🎓 Graduation Session – We’ll celebrate your progress and make sure your book is ready to send to print.
📺 Session recordings available for 60 days – Perfect if you can’t attend live or want to revisit later.
No fancy tech skills required — just your photos, your story, and a willingness to start.
By the end of the workshop, you’ll have a finished, printed photo book — something you can gift, display, or cherish for years to come.
You’ll receive full details and pricing in a few days. No obligation — just first dibs on a spot.
Let’s make this the year your memories make it out of your Photos Library and under the tree. 🎁
P.S. If you’ve ever felt overwhelmed by photo book software or stuck choosing “which photos,” don’t worry — I’ll walk you through each step. You’ll be amazed at how easy (and fun!) it can be once you start.