Photograph keepsakes

Use your phone to take apic of each old photo, Best done with the photo in a bright place, no flash, try to get the camera parallel to the photo.

Title the photo and there you have a family history to distribute to all.

Plenty of tips on using a mobile to copy photographs via mr Google

If anything is written on the back, photograph that too, and if any are in fancy cardboard frames with a photographers name on, photograph that.

Try to keep the old ones if you possibly can, or ask your relatives whether they would like them. Someone tracing their family history might be very pleased to have them.

I'm in the middle of sorting out all of mine too netgran, like you I have an assortment of 6x4 7x5 Large and some old pictures of my ancestors,that have a sort of stiff cardboard backing making it impossible to store into any photo albums,
I bought from a well known craft store an A4 document box it's clear Polypropylene and it's ideal for those awkward sized photos and I have put most of mine in there. It was not very expensive and I also scan most of my photo's too as they do fade after a time. For the normal 7x5 photos I use the slip in sort album and for the 6x4s I use a photo box as it holds loads! hope this helps

go through the kodak packets and throw out any duplicates mkeep the best shot only ,that alone will thin them down,then put them back in and make a note of where and when they were taken .Put deatils of who is in each of your enlargements on the back of the print and put the all in carboard expanding files .anything thats particularly sentimental peg to a string along your hallway and change them regularly so you can get some pleasure from them and family who see tham can take some home when they want.Its a sad fact that most photographs taken nwadays rarely get viewed ,they're on computers /clouds or phones.The records of the present generation and those coming will be hard to documant because of the lack of hard copies .Even over the past few years things have changed dramaticallly and floppy discs(remember them) have disappeared ,now discs are being phased out and its memory sticks people keep their pictures on.If things keep changing in a hundred years its only those of us who have kept prints that will be able to look at Great granny or grandpa's face and thats a shame

If you are copying old photos to save digitally be careful how you save them. I've lost lots of photos from my digital camera and phone as I had 2 laptops die suddenly and they were only on the hard drive, also lost photos from a phone dying.
I have started sorting my many old photos. I've thrown some out and put some in envelopes by era- old family photos, my childhood, my kids childhood etc. but it's a huge job and lots more to do.

Thank you all so very much for great ideas and tips. I have already started to go through the Kodak packets and am selecting the ones which hold special memories of people and places. Going to trash the ones of restaurant food and those taken of clouds taken from the aircraft window etc?Some old pics are very faded so I'm hoping to enhance them digitally, have been on google to do some research. I am going to take them out of the old and musty albums and buy some new photo boxes and plastic files. What a lovely idea about the string Paddyann.

Good advice here netgran.
Having been involved in sorting out a similar "archive" of (Victorian to modern) photos, I'd like to endorse family involvement in identification of faces & places at the earliest opportunity.
I made an assumption that my late Mil would have much better recall, prompted by her photo collection, than in fact she did at the time. Consequently, I now have her family's collection of studio portraits, etc. etc. with absolutely no way of matching faces to the names on the family tree, which is so frustrating!

I am slowly sifting through all my "proper photos lol" I have started to scan them, my printer/scanner has something on where you can put 2/3/4 photos to be scanned and it leaves a margin round them..then I transfer to disc then onto usb stick..bit of a long process and something I tend to do during the winter months when dark nights are here.

Also I have a large 10 inch digitil photo frame and just change the photos on the usb stick...( still cant beat the old fashioned photo album though)!

When we cleared out my Dad's house I took photos of the photographs I wanted to keep. My sister took the album and loose photos, so I know where they are if I want any more.

I have hundreds of photos in albums both of ours and also the ones I have from my parents and even more digital ones. I've scanned a lot and have posted some in albums on Face Book for family. I really need to sort through the hard copy ones at some point - a future retirement plan! There are a couple of my mum's albums where she's put comments under the pictures which is lovely to read - some have information on the back of who they are which is useful for future generations and not something you can do with digital ones. There are a few my aunt left too with pictures of my grandmother I never met where she has written on the back too. Losing them is a constant worry so I seem to have backup copies of backup copies everywhere

I have bought six boxes for each of my children and sorted a collection for each. They each had an album of their lives so far on their 18th birthdays .

I have thrown out all the photos of 'views'. No one will want photos of Crete taken in 1994 or Wales in 1968 (it looked as gloomy in the rain then as it does now). Even I didn't want them. I have kept all the photos of family and so far have sorted them into envelopes by year. I also digitised some of the older ones and circulated them to relevant members of the family so they have copies too.
Looking to the future, unless I go somewhere spectacular and worthy of printing in a photobook , I don't print photos at all. I don't even keep them all electronically either. Which means I have paid for two photo books in four years and, honestly, 6 months after printing the second one I'm not sure it was worth it!

This is a nightmare subject for me..... I have soooooo many photo's!!! I started sorting a year or two ago and have slung 'views' or pics of people I no longer remember! I, too, have taken pics of old photo's in order to keep them on my computer. Every winter I resolve to sort out the many square plastic boxes full of photo's but every year I seem overwhelmed by the enormity of the project .... so, basically, I empathise hugely with the OP's post!!! ~sigh~

What a lovely site this is. Had been nervous about posting ( don't know why) This morning I feel like a huge weight has been lifted! I now have a clear mission, albeit a long long, on exactly what to do with this mountain of photographs. Thank you all again Netgranners?

I have a lot too but my d has taken some and regularly puts them on FB if it's someone's birthday. We live in an apartment so we have less space. I do have some of me late son and my d does too which I often look at.

I have just gone through photos from my paternal grandparents, and as I know that no-one in my part of the family will want them after I die, I asked my cousins who are grandchildren of my father's parents, whether they wanted them. Two of them did, so I took digital photos of the whole lot, wrote done what I knew about the people and places in the photos, and sent the lot to my cousins.

I store my digital photos both on my laptop and on a external hard drive in the hope that this will prevent them from being lost, if or when my present lap top gives up the ghost.

It's probably worthwhile checking at regular intervals that newer programs can open the format the electronic photos are in, but I haven't got round to that yet.

I am currently going through all family photos and scanning them into computer. I also put them into albums so that I will have them when older and less inclined to scan through the computer. As for the negatives, I just shove them in a shoe box and will let the next generation or two plough through them and match them up. It is initially expensive buying in albums etc but worth it in the long run. I do the same with all family paperwork from the past as I research family history. Smiths have some display folders which are perfect for stuff like that and often do a 2 for 1 offer on albums. My next task is sorting the albums into families. A bit sad, that because of digital cameras, my albums for the last three grandchildren have considerably fewer photos than for first four grandchildren. Another task will be rectifying that by running off from the computers hard copies. I don't want them to get a complex when I am gone.

It's taken me two days to get all my fotos from my mobile onto the external drive & sorted into folders. I was saying to my OH, afterwards, should I get another external drive & keep it in another place .... just in case. He couldn't stop laughing & said the way I was going I'd end up with half a dozen... each backing up the other. As you can tell, I love my fotos.

Please don't use your phone to take photos of photos. They never look right.

We have three adult children, I bought three boxes and sorted out all the photos as fairly as I could and handed them over to them. I know our son has put them in his loft but one day he might like them, his sisters have already had a lot of pleasure from them. Sometimes I wish I had them but on the whole I am pleased they are in the right places!

I've sorted mine into boxes for the 3 children each has 'their' photos and a 4th has family ones. They occasionally go through the boxes and a photo of them at some age appears on Facebook, which is quite nice, as I get to think "Oh I remember that".
Now my mother who is keeper of the family photos from time immemorial is another question. They are in boxes and albums, some labelled some not. I attempted at one time to get her to sort and label them and sat trying to help. After a few minutes she always announced "That's enough" So there they sit our family from the late 1800s many of whom I can't identify. My mum was the only person who could and she finds it too difficult or painful. So a good indication that you should get things sorted whilst you feel able to.

My Dad was always interested in family history, and left his photos etc for me . My sister isn't really interested in the past.
And now my children - only eldest son is really interested, so I hope he takes them. There's also a folder of very early written correspondence - very interesting.
I had a lot of 18C photos, like you, Trisher, and sent some of them to a Canada cousin when they were having their Golden Wedding celebrations. Her two daughters were compiling a family album.

Threw out loads photos when we moved to smaller place, and I regret it every day!

I have this exact 'project ' going on in my flat - for over 5 years now! There are some great ideas in these posts which have inspired me to get back at it - tomorrow