Working with scans of old photo collection

Question

I'm trying to use iPhoto 8.0.2 to organize my grandmother's photos, with the end goal of sharing with family on Flickr.
So, an old photo collection which has been scanned.
First, dating. I'd like to be able to order photos chronologically.
I could change the photo dates (losing one link to the original scanned collections (events) which correspond to physical envelopes of actual originals). iPhoto seems to insist upon a month/day/year, and cannot handle anything less than that. Photos that are identified with just a year, or month/year for example. Not to mention the ones that I'll try to estimate a year based upon the apparent ages of the people in them.
Another approach would be to use keywords to tag photos with a year. But then, if I want to use keywords for another reason, I think I lose the ability to sort them in chronological order. Haven't checked out whether one can restrict range in a keyword sort. Or if keywords can be assigned some structure that can be used in the selection/sorting process.
A second concern is keeping the connection clear between the scanned images and the original photos (who has them, where they came from). Hopefully other family might share, so this will grow beyond grandma's photos. Careful editing of event titles should address this. But then I don't think I can create sub-events, right? Is there a way to cluster events together? For example, if my cousin sends me more of grandma's photos, is there a way to associate the new batch with the first set, other than defining an event naming convention?
Thank you for any help you can give on the above questions. I'd especially appreciate thoughts from others working with an 'old' photo collection regarding these issues (dating, keeping the connection between paper & electronic originals), as well as others you've encountered that I haven't thought of yet.

Answer 1

Welcome to the Apple Discussions.
First, dating. I'd like to be able to order photos chronologically.
iPhoto will get the date of the photo from either the Exif data or the File creation date. As these are scanned photos they will have no Exif data,a nd so their dates will be the date they were scanned, regardless of the subject of the photo.
The most simple way to date the pics is to use a Title scheme - 2009 -04 - 13: John’s Wedding, for instance, will give you the year, month or date to search on, plus John and Wedding.
I would not use keywords for dates.
Is there a way to cluster events together? For example, if my cousin sends me more of grandma's photos, is there a way to associate the new batch with the first set, other than defining an event naming convention?
Don’t use Events, use Albums.
N o you can’t cluster Events, but you can do pretty much anything you want with Albums and Folders.
Regards
TD