Ancestry now offers a mail-in digitization service for photographs, slides, negatives, video, and audio. I stopped by their booth to ask questions about how it works, what it costs, and what genealogists should know before sending their family treasures through the mail.

The answers raised some interesting points about storage, metadata, and what happens to your images after they’re digitized.

Before you fill a box and ship your photos, you may want to read this.

I’ve broken down the service and what I learned on my Substack.

Comparison: Ancestry.com versus Forever.com

Genealogists have several options for digitizing family photographs, and each approach has advantages.

Ancestry’s service focuses on convenience—mail your items, pay for digitization, and the images appear in your Ancestry account, where they can easily connect to your family tree. However, access requires an active subscription, and the service isn’t intended as permanent digital storage.

Forever.com takes a different approach by emphasizing permanent storage and ownership of your files, along with digitization services and options for sharing or creating photo products.

DIY scanning with a home scanner or camera setup gives you the most control over image quality, file naming, and metadata—but it requires more time and effort. Many genealogists find that the best strategy is a combination: digitize images, store them safely, and add metadata so future generations know exactly who and what they’re looking at.

Photo Detective Tip

Always download and organize your digitized images.

If you use a digitization service, download the files to your computer and store them in clearly labeled folders.

Then add metadata to each image—names, dates, locations, and relationships—so the information travels with the file wherever it goes.

Remember: a digitized photo without identifying information can become tomorrow’s mystery photograph.

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Pension Records

• Want to know more about your Revolutionary War ancestor, then search for a pension record. These documents are chock-full of personal details such as names of family members and financial status. Friends and neighbors also testified on behalf of applicants providing you with insights into their social circle. The veterans gave testimony of their service, battles they participated in and the names of men they served with. For instance, William Hutchings of Maine  didn’t apply for a pension until 1832 and his father vouched for his service. The documents in his record include the amount of pension he received ($21.66 per year) and that he received an increase under a Special Act of Congress in 1865. You can read his personal declaration in support of his pension application which outlines his life during and after the war. Hutchings lived until 1866.
• If your ancestor lived until 1840 and applied for a pension for military service up to that point then it’s likely they appear in the 1840 Census of Pensioners . You’ll find the name of the person collecting the pension, their age and where they live. If they lived after 1840 then there is a chance these individuals posed for a photographic portrait. Shiny, reflective daguerreotypes were introduced to the United States in 1839.

Service Details

• Not everyone applied for a pension. Look for service details of your patriot ancestor by searching the U.S. Compiled Revolutionary War Military Service Records, 1775-1783 or the U.S. Revolutionary War Rolls, 1775-1783 . These muster rolls are indexed and you can view the original images on digital copies of the National Archives microfilm.

When you finish searching the bountiful resources available for the Revolutionary War period, you’ll know a lot more about your family that lived during those tumultuous years.  Let me know what you’ve found.  I love hearing success stories!

The Last Muster

The odds of you actually having a photograph or other image of that Revolutionary War period ancestor hasn’t been calculated because no one knows how many of the men and women who lived during that period actually sat for a portrait—photographic or painted. I’ve found more than two hundred photos or artwork based on images and the search continues. You can participate too.  See my Last Muster Project page for details.

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