What's the best way to share lots of pictures from WWII so others might find their relatives in them?

Question

I recently finished digitizing pictures my grandfather took while he was in Europe during World War II.  They are on my personal website but I'd like to figure out the best way to get them into the hands of potential relatives of the people that are in the pictures.  There are names of some of the people written on the pictures but I have hundreds of pictures.  What should I do?

Answer 1

You could create a WikiTree free-space page and post the photos there.

If--best case--these people already have WT profiles, then you can link to their profiles.  

If not, well...I'd be interested to hear what other people suggest.  I'm not sure that listing a person's name on a WT page is enough to get it recognized in a Google search.

If you have the energy, you could search for the people's profiles on Ancestry (if you are a subscriber), FamilySearch, etc. and contact the PM on Ancestry or just post the photo or a link on FS.

Comments

I like the Free Space idea. Nothing wrong with loading up a page with a small table, load the images there, set up the images with any name clues, unit clues, date-ranges, etc. and turning people loose on helping to identify who might be in the photos.

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Thanks for the advice.  I've started a free space page titled Identifying 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment paratroopers in pictures from WWII.  I'm going to start posting pictures there soon and maybe I'll get some help from others that have some extra cycles to spare.

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And thanks for the star, Eric.

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Eric, I hope you will report back to G2G one of these days and tell us of the success you've had.  A couple years ago I created Souvenirs of Attu, a free-space page where I posted some of my father's World War II photos and memorabilia.  I added a little historical information about Attu, where he served, and did a Google search for other WT profiles that mentioned Attu.  Perhaps you might try something like that.  (I think I have a lot more of dad's photos, but without any names, I haven't been as ambitious as you about getting them on-line.)

Answer 2

Archive.org is an excellent, more permanent, place to store and share such items.  Instructions are here: https://help.archive.org/hc/en-us/articles/360001820212-How-to-upload-scanned-images-to-make-a-book.  You can then link to the "book" from anyplace.  I have also seen repositories for some military units, but I haven't found one for the 101st.

Comments

Yeah, I'll do this as well just to make sure the images never get lost.