Using Templates for Pinterest and Genealogy

Okay, so we've all done it. We have all pinned pictures that were not our own onto Pinterest. We've all found photographs of ancestors, saved them to our computers, and shared them without linking to the source, right?

This, my friend, is bordering on copyright infringement and I know I'm not alone in this. I am not an attorney (nor do I pretend to play one on the internet) but I believe I have a "system" that will assist many of us from dancing around that awful "copyright infringement line" and prevent us from crossing that fuzzy gray area. 

Want to learn more?

In my genealogy and family research via the internet, I have encountered many photographs of my ancestors, census records, biographies, cemetery photographs, and more. These are not my own personal creations - I didn't take the pictures or create the documents. I don't have the copyright on these either.

Therefore, am I allowed to create screenshots of them, copy and save the image to my own tree or computer, or even "pin" them to Pinterest without a link?

What if the website I found them on doesn't have a "pin it" button - which kinda allows you to pin them, right?

This is that gray area of copyrights and it creates many questions for me personally. 

So, how do I do it? 

For me, personally, I do not seek out disobeying copyright laws. My intention is not to steal photos or take documents. When I use Pinterest and pin these images, I want to share these with others not break laws.

So, I typically will use templates that I have created. I use a photo editing program that allows me to overlay text on these templates. Then I upload (or pin) these images to my boards and edit the source link to direct anyone who clicks on the image to the website where I found the item.

All that may sound complicated, but once you do it a few times, you will see how easy it actually is.

Have you used Templates for your Pinterest images?