Old Family Photos

I am doing exactly that - trying to sort out my photos. Mi e is not as vast as yours. It’s just my personal collection. When I divorced, I handed over all my ex-husband’s family photos to him. Just kept one or two.
Now I’m in the middle of sorting the rest. I am putting in 3 piles, for each of my children. Pictures of places and people I don’t recognise and which will have no meaning for my children, I will bin. Hopefully, by next week the job will be completed.
I would suggest you keep the photos that means something to you and your childre. Bin the rest.

I had a similar problem GrandmaKT. I have no siblings anymore and my children don’t print photos, so I decided to tackle it one day. I ordered some photo storage boxes from Amazon (loads of different sorts available) and set about sorting them. I threw away any photo without people on them, and any photo with people I don’t definitely know. I sorted them into eras, starting with my mums and dad’s photos from their families. I was ruthless and the more I kept at it the more manageable it became. I had a mad few weeks at it but I ran out of steam and still have to some to do. I’ve kept it to two boxes, all dated and sorted, and I will give them to my children eventually. They don’t seem interested now, but they may be in later years.

I am sorting, throwing out all those where I do nto know who the people are and those that are identical or nearly so. then I am scanning them and saving them online. I can then throw out further photos if I wish.

I intend to make photo books with mine- but when I ever get round to it heaven knows...

My mother-in-law has been doing this.
Unfortunately she is doing exactly as people on his thread are doing.
Binning photos with no people and saving only people she knows for sure.

I have rescued quite a few interesting photos taken in strange places and have found them through a reverse image look up.

Such a lot of amazing history she is binning!
😱

I would definitely want to have at least one offspring to flick through my old photos before binning. Some of the places tell a whole new story - when I say this is the hotel xyz in such a place she remembers it and you discover a whole new interesting story about the woman in the corner with a baby or the ancient monument which has since been bombed!

You can even translate signs which are fascinating...
I think it's too easy to just save the things you are interested in and only give those ones to your children.

I don't need any more of (say) auntie Jane!

I’m another one sorting photos. I’m discarding duplicates and ones where I don’t know who the people are. I’m making up a good old fashioned photo album of my relatives and my early life with notes as to who people are, relevant stories etc.

I think I would (tactfully) have refused to take ‘Auntie’s carrier bags full of photos’, saying I have enough of my own to sort, thank you.

Dumping them on you, just to get rid.

Easy way out for her.

I have got rid of old family photos with cross looking old women and stern men, who I have not the remotest idea who they are, and no one left to ask who might know.

Digital copies are all very well but have you ensured your family will be able to access them when you are no longer around?

Mine are all in photo albums in a large inbuilt bookcase
Hundreds no thousand as well I have a cupboard full of shoeboxes full of very old ones I also have 8000 plus on my phone as you can see I love my photos
Funnily enough although young ones don’t bother with real photos when my grown up grandkids visit they always get the albums down to relive them with lots of laughter at fashions haircuts etc

Mine love the albums too BlueBelle

My SiL has made up a photo album every year since her eldest was born(50 years ago)and labelled them carefully so she knows when and where each photo was taken. All the adult children enjoy looking at them and when they visit we can say “bring 1984 with you “. It’s great fun!

A couple of years before he died my father made a selection of very old B&W photos from his childhood, and put them in an album, with captions to say who, when and where, plus comments such as ‘Grandma X and Great-aunt Y, dressed in the fashion of staid ladies of their day.’ 😂

There was such a lot we’d never have known but for that album - we were so grateful that he’d taken the trouble.

I dont have a problem with a great many old photos. Howeevr I am sad that so many ate throwing away old photos that may be of general historical interest. Some Ebay dealers specialise in old photos, even cabinet photos of unknown individuals. There is a market for them.

Thanks for all the comments! I didn't know about the photo storage boxes LadyGaGa, so I'll check those out. I happened to watch Who Do You Think You Are? for the first time in years this week (Will Young). It struck me how important it is to save and document some photos in case anyone in the future wants to do some research.
None of my immediate family are into genealogy, but a distant relative is. Auntie gave her several albums and lots of loose photos. I received a text from her last week saying that she had scanned them all in to her computer and was posting the originals on to me! Argh!!

Caleo

I dont have a problem with a great many old photos. Howeevr I am sad that so many ate throwing away old photos that may be of general historical interest. Some Ebay dealers specialise in old photos, even cabinet photos of unknown individuals. There is a market for them.

The loss of original source material for future historians really worries me, and has done for a long time.

I’m about to do the same, we have hundreds of them but thankfully just our own family. I’ve got of animals and birds taken at various zoo visits, several of scenery of I can’t remember where, and lots of duplicates of family holiday snps. I’m going to sift through and just keep the family snaps. I’m thinking of shredding the rest.

Forgot to add, I remember a neighbour binning his and when the dust cart came up the road the photos were all scattered along the road. This is why I’m thinking of shredding.

I throw away ones with unknown people, save the rest to a box.

A Flickr Pro subscription is not hugely expensive. If you haven't got a scanner then beg, borrow or steal one, upload your pictures, LABEL them clearly with information about the relationships, and pass the sign in details to your children. Then you can chuck out the originals with a clear conscience!

Your kids may not be that interested but it's quite possible their children will be.

I went through a disorganised heap of old family photos and threw away most of them - e.g. pictures of beautiful lakes we did not remember seeeing. I kept almost everything of family and places which had meaning for us. I scanned them into my computer and then created a book for each of my children from babyhood to adulthood and had them printed - several copies and with hard covers. I put in names, dates and places. This really matters as others have said - pictures of unknown people have little meaning for future generations. I hope future generations will enjoy the books, as well as the current recipients. You could produce a book of generations who came before you - or any theme you care about. It is a lot of work and getting books printed is not cheap, but I decided it was worth it as preserving their early history, and they have been very pleased to have them, as have their own children, and maybe children not yet born will be interested too.

Famy and local historians love photos of places as they used to be.

If you have the time and the energy, you could try asking local archives, military historians and those interested in the history of fashion, if any of your photos are of interest to them.

In our age group we probably all have photos of a quantity of unknown friends and relatives in the uniforms of both world wars, and any armed conflict since then.

Scores of wedding photos, ladies dressed for garden parties, godmothers with infants after the christening and so on - any or all of this might be of interest to historians.

My sister's children have all the family photos they want, so I sent my cousins the photos from our common grandparents' time, as some of their children are interested in knowing who these people were, or at least what the looked like.

You can also upload pictures to ancestry for future generations to find.

Yes. Also there are people who buy and sell old photos of any description. My DD was given some old photos framed for her as a wedding gift. They were of near where she was living at that time. Yes still hanging on her wall even though moved on. Take a look at google. Seems such a shame to throw them when others might enjoy them. We also have some to frame.