Newbie metadata question

[tedpoppke]

Hi,

I plan on using XnView to organize about 50,000 images (current, destined to grow). Personal snap shots, scanned snapshot photos, and scanned old photos for family history.

In the planning stage, I've thought up several hundred categories, many related to accession of the images; I'm trying to put scanned images back into their original film rolls and sequence. I'm also trying to record what the original image was.

I'm building my starting categories outside of XnView to organize it before importing.
Before I start adding categories, I have a couple of theological questions;

1. Am I crazy for having so many categories? Should I be putting this information somewhere else in the metadata?
2. How many layers of categories are practical? I'm starting with three.
3. Do I record people's names in a category or somewhere else?
4. Will the database run better with a shallow but wide category structure (3 deep), or with a narrow but deep category structure (more than 3 deep).