Photo Albums- what do I do with them??!

B

Buckeye

Well-known Member
I have 3 photo albums laying on my desk. The oldest was given to me by my mother, so childhood pictures of me and my brothers, from late 40s to late 50s. I put together one that has photos of my little family, me, wife, son, daughter, but the 3 of them have passed away. The third album is a little bit of everything. I also have a thumb drive with about 8,000 pictures from the last 20 years. Mostly vacation photos. Lastly, I have 6 years of high school yearbooks.

The question is what do I do with them now? I’m 77 but my health seems to be rapidly declining. I have 2 grandchildren but I don’t think the would care for them. To them it would just be a bunch of old dead people.

Or maybe I should just accept that they will end up in a landfill? I dunno
 
I have gone thru my photos once already and really thinned them out yet still have too many. I plan on doing another sort this winter and handing them off to the kids, but in truth they probably only want a few from each year of their lives.

If unsure just hold on to them, let someone else worry about them in the future.
 
I have a 1924 picture of my grandfather holding my1 year old mother in front of his Model T, complete with flags attached to the radiator
 
My father had an aunt who was one of 18 kids. He once had a very large picture of 15 out of 18 standing in front of their farmhouse along with the parents. But when my father died he had already disposed of a lot of that old stuff including a letter from a guy who was a soldier in the Civil war.
 
What is the value of an old photo? If it's a place or person you care about, it's valuable. If it's well done, like something by Edward Weston or Ansel Adams, it's valuable for its artistic merits. If it's historic or is an image of a different time and place it can have value. There is a site called Shorpy.com that posts this type every day. If it doesn't meet any of these criteria, then it's just scrap paper.
 
Unless some younger generation person in your extended families wants to take them, most such photo prints will likely never be looked at because to sort through large numbers of them would be a waste of time with whatever person having little understanding of what they are looking at.

A decade plus ago while visiting my mother and sister (both since passed away), I digitally crudely scanned all her huge box of small prints while having them help ID what we were looking at. Then created computer folders by year and persons into which the digitized files were put. So I did the tedious work digitizing, sorting, and identifying images. Later sent them out to all our relatives on media that they could do whatever they wished with them.

That way, enough relatives had those image files that the images would have a better chance of surviving into future generations. In other words, if just one person had the unsorted print box with hundreds of small photo prints, the chances such would eventually be trashed and lost forever would be high.
 
Buckeye said:
I have 3 photo albums laying on my desk. The oldest was given to me by my mother, so childhood pictures of me and my brothers, from late 40s to late 50s. I put together one that has photos of my little family, me, wife, son, daughter, but the 3 of them have passed away. The third album is a little bit of everything. I also have a thumb drive with about 8,000 pictures from the last 20 years. Mostly vacation photos. Lastly, I have 6 years of high school yearbooks.

The question is what do I do with them now? I’m 77 but my health seems to be rapidly declining. I have 2 grandchildren but I don’t think the would care for them. To them it would just be a bunch of old dead people.

Or maybe I should just accept that they will end up in a landfill? I dunno
Click to expand...
Have you ever let your grandchildren look through them? Maybe not entire albums, but they might like to have specific photos.

Do you have great-grandchildren? Depending on their ages, they might want them just because actual photos are kind of a novelty, and photo albums are basically extinct.
 
Sticking my two cents in here to say that you may want to consider scanning/uploading some of these photos to a site such as an ancestry family tree. I know it would probably seem like a hassle, but my daughter has found pictures of close relatives that she thought she'd never get to know what they looked like (her "other side", not mine) and they are treasures to her. The person who uploaded them had a note written that they assume no one would ever care or see them, but they wanted to do that before tossing the pictures. Someone did care.... a lot.
 
I considered taking them in and getting them put into something that can be passed around via email or something

Ended up just taking snapshots of the ones that meant something to me

But, right now, while thinking about it, seems a good time to write down what you do know about the photo
For those that will inherit them
I've got too many mystery ones from folks that didn't

This one I prize

A very young Grampa and Gramma O'

Jus now took a quick pic of the framed one
(didn't disable the flash...so there's a fireball coming in from outer space headed right for 'em....heh heh)

grampa and gramma.jpg
 
CallMeKate said:
Close?
Click to expand...
Saw Grampa laugh.......once
Gramma was a cook at a logging camp

To stray a bit off topic (actually not), I wrote about Grampa;


Grampa

He was a quiet man.
Work was his vocation and recreation.
I spent a lot of time at their place in my early years, his latter years.
Seems Grampa always had chores that filled his waking hours.
I was his shadow.
He wore coveralls most days, and always sported an old grey fedora.
His high cut oxfords made a shuffling sound as he walked. Parkinson’s was having its way with his system.
We’d dine on a bowl of hominy together in the country kitchen.
As the midday sun danced on the table through the window from between the limbs of the giant firs, I’d watch his massive hand struggle to keep his corn on the shaking spoon.

In between chores, and my naps, he’d sit in the old padded rocker and thumb through a photo album while I stood at his side.
‘The dapple was Molly and the grey was Dixie’, pointing to the work horse team he knew so well.
Seemed Grampa had a couple soft balls tucked in his upper shirt sleeves. He was a compact man at five nine, but stout, bull neck, thick arms.

I knew him in his lesser years, keeping his meaning to life by doing small jobs.
Things like sharpening the hoes with rasps, feeding the chickens, gathering eggs, or lubing the tractor.
He cut down a hoe to my size, and all three of us hoed acres of strawberries.

I saw him laugh once.

He was a proud man, brought down and humbled by an untreatable disease, but keeping his misery within.
Dad says he was hard boiled in his younger years, and short on patience. Proud.
I knew him as a much different man.

One time I peered through a cracked door to his study. He was on his hands and knees, talking to his Lord, no longer able to just kneel.
His bible was quite worn.
Dad gave to it me a few years ago.
I leant it to him at Christmas.
I’ll get it back pretty soon.
I think of times then and times now.
What a difference in pace, in conviction, in the shear enjoyment of endurance in simple living.
I see my grandkids give me an occasional glance of admiration, but nothing like the revered awe I had of him.

He died when I was ten.

I can still hear the shuffle of his feet, but it’s mine that echo his stride now.

Enough of this.

I’ve got chores to do before I sleep.

Chores to do before I sleep.


Back on topic
Here's another pic

Grapa and Gramma.jpg

If anyone has trouble sleeping, I recommend this humongous thread;

https://www.seniorforums.com/threads/vivid-memories-of-childhood-and-beyond.32732/page-2
 
Murrmurr said:
Have you ever let your grandchildren look through them? Maybe not entire albums, but they might like to have specific photos.

Do you have great-grandchildren? Depending on their ages, they might want them just because actual photos are kind of a novelty, and photo albums are basically extinct.
Click to expand...
Grandsons are both 30ish. No greats at this point. The are both very polite, well mannered young men who would say “that would be great! Thanks grandpa!” even if they have zero interest in them.
 
Buckeye said:
Grandsons are both 30ish. No greats at this point. The are both very polite, well mannered young men who would say “that would be great! Thanks grandpa!” even if they have zero interest in them.
Click to expand...
There's really no possible way for you to know that they won't have an interest in genealogy ten years from now. Or that they'll have children who will need to do those family history projects for school. For that matter, thinking they have "zero interest" is saying you know someone else's thoughts and feelings. I say give them the albums... if they foolishly toss them out, it's not on you.
 
Kate, thanks for sharing your concerns. My point is that either grandson would graciously accept the albums because they would not want to hurt my feelings. I don’t presume to know whether or not they would enjoy them or not.

And, as an aside, neither one of them seems to in a hurry to bless me with Great grandchild 🥲
 
A neighbor recently went through hers if the photo had friends or others in family she tried to contact them or if passed family to see if they wanted some older photos ....... went through and created a family tree type album for grandchild
but other photos that would not mean much to anyone else she sorted out and tossed some.
 
I have the same problem. I've thinned them out some and given some pictures to my kids and grandkids, but still have a ton of them left, in addition to all the digital pictures I have, like everybody else. I really hate to throw them out, as those old pictures were precious in those days. Now, we take dozens of everything on our phones and throw most of them out without a second glance.
 
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