We have been going through my grandparents’ old photo albums lately.
There are birthdays, holidays, vacations, family gatherings and ordinary afternoons preserved between the pages. There are babies who are old now being held by people who are long gone. There are young couples who later became my great grandparents. There are houses that no longer stand, cars that have long since been scrap metal and people frozen at an age I never knew them.
And then there are the strangers. Not actual strangers, of course. They meant enough to my grandparents to photograph them. They stood beside them at family gatherings, sat around their kitchen tables, traveled with them or showed up often enough to earn a place in an album.
But to us, they are strangers. We look at a photograph and ask, “Who is that?”
Sometimes someone knows. Sometimes there is a name written on the back.
And sometimes there is nothing. No name. No date. No location. No clue. Just a face. It has made me realize how incredibly fragile family history really is.
When my grandparents put those albums together, they probably never imagined anyone would need an explanation. Of course they knew who those people were.
Why would Popou need to write his coworkers name on the back of a photograph when he spent every day with him?
Why would Yiayia label a picture of her best friend?
Why write down where Christmas dinner was held when everybody who was there already knew?
Because someday, everybody who knows will be gone.
That is the part we tend to forget. We take pictures for the present, but photographs will outlive the people who took them.
A picture that seems completely obvious today can become a mystery in one generation.
And once the last person who recognizes a face is gone, there is no way to get that information back.
We have been lucky with some of my grandparents’ photographs. Someone took the time to write on them.
A first and last name. A year. “Christmas at Mom and Dad’s.” “Peter, age 6.” “MaryLee and VeraNicky at the lake.” Those few words can turn an old photograph from an anonymous image into a piece of family history.
Then we turn the page and find another photograph with nothing written on it.
Three people standing together, smiling at the camera.
We know they mattered. We just do not know who they were. Today, we take more photographs than any generation before us.
Our phones are filled with thousands of them. Birthdays. First days of school. Ballgames. Vacations. Christmas mornings. Babies asleep on someone’s chest. Grandparents holding grandchildren. Friends sitting around a table.
We assume we will always remember. We will not. And technology does not completely solve the problem.
A digital photograph may have a date attached to it, but that does not necessarily tell our grandchildren who is standing in the picture.
Years from now, “IMG_4827” is not going to mean anything to anybody.
So write the names down. If you have boxes of old photographs, start asking questions now.
Sit down with your parents and grandparents and go through them.
Ask who the people are. Ask where the picture was taken. Ask what was happening. And when they tell you, write it down. Do not assume someone else knows. Do not assume you will remember. Do not assume there will always be time to ask later.
And do the same with the photographs you are taking now.
Write names on the backs of printed photographs. Add captions to digital albums. Put dates and locations with important pictures. Record the full names of people your children may only know someday as “Grandma’s friend” or “that cousin who lived in Kansas.”
Future generations will thank you for details that seem completely unnecessary today.
Newspapers understand this better than most.
We spend a lot of time putting names underneath photographs.
Sometimes it feels tedious making sure every person in a group photo is identified from left to right.
But names matter. A photograph without a name is just an image. A photograph with a name becomes a record. Someday, somebody may open an old newspaper, scrapbook or family album looking for a person they never got the chance to meet.
Give them something more than a face. Write the names on the back.