Lost in Time? Tackling Uncertain Dates with Old Photos and Digital Asset Management

We’ve all been there. You’re digitizing a box of old family photos, or painstakingly scanning fragile prints from an antique shop, and you’re faced with the inevitable: no dates. These images are precious glimpses into the past, but without context, they can feel adrift in time.

This is especially challenging when using digital asset management (DAM) software like IMatch. These tools thrive on organization – timelines, chronological sorting, and precise metadata. But what do you do with a photo where the date is completely unknown?

The Problem: Dates, Times, and Metadata Standards

Most DAM systems, including IMatch, rely heavily on accurate date and time information to function effectively. Features like the timeline view arrange files chronologically, and metadata fields expect dates in a specific format – typically YYYY.MM.DD HH:MM:SS (as required by XMP date and time tags and ExifTool).

The reality is that many historical photos simply don’t have this level of precision attached to them. We might be able to guess the approximate year based on clothing styles, hairstyles, cars in the background, or architectural details. Perhaps we can narrow it down to a season. But a precise date? Often impossible.

This creates a conflict: how do you represent uncertainty within a system designed for certainty? Simply leaving the date field blank isn’t an option; it breaks functionality and hinders organization.

A Practical Solution: Bridging the Gap in IMatch

At photools.com, we often encounter this challenge from our IMatch users. Here’s a strategy we recommend to effectively manage photos with uncertain dates within your IMatch library:

1. The Quarterly Date Encoding Schema:

Instead of leaving the date field empty, use a structured approximation. We suggest dividing the year into quarters and assigning a placeholder date based on the likely timeframe:

• January 1st, : For photos likely taken between January and March.
• April 1st, : For photos likely taken between April and June.
• July 1st, : For photos likely taken between July and September.
• October 1st, : For photos likely taken between October and December.

This allows IMatch to still place the image on a timeline (albeit an approximate one) and group files by general timeframe. It’s far better than nothing!

2. Leveraging the “CircaDateCreated” XMP Tag:

This is where things get really useful. The XMP IPTC namespace includes a free-text field XMP::iptcExt\CircaDateCreated. This tag is perfect for capturing the uncertainty surrounding your dates. Use it to record details like:

• “Approximately 1890”
• “Early 1920s”
• “Winter 1911”
• “Likely between 1935 and 1945”

This provides valuable context that goes beyond a simple year.

Here is how this would look in the IMatch Metadata Panel. We’ve added an approximate date and time for both Create Date and Date Subject created (First of July). In the “CircaDateCreated” tag we recorded additional details.

Marking Images with Uncertain Dates for Easy Discoverability

Importantly, populating the “CircaDateCreated” tag effectively marks a file as having an uncertain date within IMatch. You can easily filter your database to display only files with a non-empty “CircaDateCreated” value, or leverage a data-driven category created from files containing values in this tag for targeted filtering and browsing.

3. Data-Driven Categories for Enhanced Organization:

Here’s where the power of consistency comes in. By using standardized phrases within your “CircaDateCreated” tag (e.g., always writing “Winter 1882” instead of variations like “Around Winter 1882”), IMatch can automatically group files with identical values using data-driven category. This allows you to quickly browse and manage collections based on approximate periods, even without precise dates.

Here is how you can setup a data-driven category that organizes your images based on the “CircaDateCreated” tag:

This category produces a result similar to this:

You can now easily identify and manage images with uncertain dates, allowing you to update them as new information becomes available.

Use a Controlled Vocabulary

If you decide to use the “CircaDateCreated” tag to record information for images with uncertain dates, consistency is crucial.

Avoid variations like “Summer 1923” and “Around Summer 1923”. Using consistent phrasing to describe approximate dates makes it easier to group images with similar date approximations using data-driven categories.

The IMatch Universal Thesaurus can manage data for all tags, not just keywords. We can leverage this to establish a controlled vocabulary specifically for “CircaDateCreated” entries. When you encounter a new value, such as “Winter 1922”, add it to the thesaurus using the corresponding command in the Metadata Panel (<F6>).
The Metadata Panel will then offer suggestions as you type, allowing you to select the best match and further improve consistency, ensuring data-driven categories can accurately group files with the same circa date.

In the Event View

Using this encoding scheme lets you position photos—or groups of photos—on the IMatch timeline within the Event View, allowing you to see their approximate relationships.

Combining Strategies: Your Best Approach to Uncertain Dates

By combining the quarterly date encoding schema with the “CircaDateCreated” tag, you can effectively manage photos with uncertain dates within IMatch. You’re providing enough information for basic organization while preserving crucial context about the level of uncertainty. It’s a practical and powerful way to keep your historical photo collections organized and accessible – even when time itself is elusive.