Media File Names and a Photo Journal Citation

Continuing the thought process about Filenames, within Family Tree Maker, I wanted to re-look at how I handled my  own Media Files. In this specific case, photographs.

My goal here, is to have Citations on ALL, well almost all, Media files. My exception to that goal is Family Tree Maker Charts, Reports, and other Media files. This is my continued drive to have Citations linked to Facts. Where appropriate, those Citations have the Media Files. I want to be able to answer the question, Where did THAT photograph come from?

Media File ==> Citation ==> Fact

What I created was a "Photo Journal" Citation. There is a Diary or Journal Source Template that works very well (I think). The fields for this template are:

• Source template: Diary or Journal
• Author surname:  [ my name ]
• Author forename(s):  [ my name ]
• Manuscript title: Photo Journal
• Record type: Photo
• Place created: [ blank ]
• Record dates:[ blank ]
• Owner: [ my name ]
• Owner address: [ my address ] *
• Owner location; [ my city, state, zip ]
• Year owned: [ blank ]
• Comments:

I have several Media Categories that my photographs will fall into.

• Headstones from Cemetery Visits
• Photographs of houses
• Photographs of buildings

They are already time stamped, or I know when I visited a place and took pictures.

What I have done, with the Filenaming, is in line with what I have already blogged about, but I stated with a common first element of the file name of House-. I wanted these photos to be together when looking at File Explorer, outside of Family Tree Maker, so that at a glance, I know they are not people, based on the filename.

House-State_City-Address

As before, if the City was "West Chester", the filename would have West_Chester where "City" is. The Street name would be spelled out with the "underscore" separating the words, replacing the space key.

The citation would look like this:

Russ Worthington, "Photo Journal"; Photo (Hackettstown; privately held by Russ Worthington, Hackettstown, New Jersey, 07840).  Pennsylvania, Exton, 129 Worthington Road. Date of Visit: 04 April 2010.

The Citation screen looks like this:

To keep the Places together, in the Sources Workspace, The Citation detail is State, City, then the address. In this case, I chose to use the Citation text field, for the "Date of Visit" entry. There is a check mark in the "Include in ref. note" but doesn't show up well in the screen capture above.

No, here is the beauty, for me at least, for doing it this way. I can now go to the  Places Workspace, where I can see everyone who has an Address Fact, at this address.

This example is a different address:

Selecting that first Address Fact, clicking to Go To, takes me right to the Fact that I now want to Add and Existing Citation. The Citation with the image of the house at that address.

When I go to Anna Bennett's People Workspace, Person View, I see this, for the Address Fact:

What that tells me is that I have a 1930 Census Record that places her at that address, and that there is a photograph of that address.

Going back to the Sources Workspace, I can see how many Address Facts were cited, with that photo journal citation.

I will probably to another blog post on this topic, where I address my Cemetery and Headstone Media Files.  The same concept is used for those pictures.

The advantage is that I can make public my pictures, each with a citation, including the Date that the picture was taken. This way, if I find a picture of an address or building, that I did NOT take, they are in a Media Category that are ALL marked Private, and another Media Category that has my photographs ALL without the "private" setting.

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Copyright © 2018 by Cousin Russ