Gransnet forums

Genealogy/memories

Photo Albums

(40 Posts)
Tegan Thu 23-Jan-14 18:04:09

In the process of putting years amd years worth of photos into albums and it's doing my head in sad. Pets that are long since gone; friends that are gone too. Difficult to buy albums these days as well, as everyone puts photos on their computers now so I was lucky to find some at W H Smiths. Once they're sorted and on the shelf I can forget about them, but I've go a long way to go; photos all over the living room. Doesn't help that I can't bring myself to throw any away, including the ones where people don't have heads or there are fingers over the shutter confused.

Tegan Tue 28-Jan-14 22:23:12

Having got the photos in some sort of order I've spent the day putting cd's in alphabetical order and in a different place.

mrsmopp Tue 28-Jan-14 20:15:19

Mine are all in shoeboxes, one for each decade (roughly).
More recent ones, ie digital photos are on a memory stick which I can plug into the TV and run as a slide show. It works well and the whole family can enjoy watching and sharing the memories..
I would like to scan the older pics and put them on the memory stick, but it's a bit time consuming and I haven't got round to it yet.

NfkDumpling Mon 27-Jan-14 07:44:50

My DH is an enthusiastic photographer. We have albums - and shoe boxes full of the ones which aren't as good but we couldn't throw away. My aim is to scan them into the computer and get them all printed in photo books to give to the kids for Christmas presents. It's been just that - an aim - for at least five years, ever since I down loaded the program!

durhamjen Mon 27-Jan-14 01:29:27

I also have a digital keyring, which takes up to 80 photos and I can watch a slideshow of them. Like everything else, you have to remember to recharge it, but it's easy to take with you if you go away.

durhamjen Mon 27-Jan-14 01:22:10

I have two file boxes with photos of various places we have lived or been on holiday, not all dated but I can usually tell by the age of the kids.
My son decided today he was going to get an external hard drive to put all the photos on from his computer and the phones and cameras.
That's because he needed to look at some photos for work and discovered the SD card they were on had been corrupted. I reminded him that we had an external hard drive, but could I find it? Need to sort out the photos more. I have lots of SD cards dated and labelled.

Gally Sun 26-Jan-14 23:57:43

Mine were in some semblance of date order until DD3 had a rummage through them to make a collage for J's last birthday and failed to return them to their rightful places. Does that surprise me; huh.

Daisyanswerdo Sun 26-Jan-14 23:04:46

I've sorted my photographs into years and put them in labelled envelopes, sometimes two envelopes for a year, i.e. Jan - June, July - December. The envelopes are in shoe-boxes in year order - they fit well.

I've also got old cine films, some pre-war, and had them put on video tape; I suppose now that's out of date and I'll have to find a way of putting them on dvd.

Tegan Sun 26-Jan-14 22:53:29

..in pencil, not ink. Gally, it has been a sad few days, but in some ways it's been therapeutic as well. For me it was the loss of my marriage that I found painful, seeing us looking so happy together; not as bad as having lost my husband, obviously but still sad. We've also started saying things like 'remember when we...etc'

susieb755 Sun 26-Jan-14 21:52:10

I make scrapbooks as a hobby - its a very satisfying way of gathering memories together. I also have boxes and boxes of photos - handy tip - write people names on the back... there will come a day when you are not here to tell who they are - I inherited all my parents albums and its so frustrating !

bikergran Sun 26-Jan-14 11:22:22

I think old photos in a box has something about them...they don't need to be categorised ..it is nice just to flick through them..I did have a few attempts to put them in order but it was near impossible and some how took the warmth away..I think it's part and parcel when you just come across them in no particular order and you never know which photo is coming next.. I suppose since the digital age then it is much easier to put them in order e.g holiday to Greece etc day at the Castle etc but with older ones I think the magic and memories are much nicer just random. smile but that is just my opinion smile what ever way you like..enjoy the picture show [show]

Hunt Sun 26-Jan-14 11:04:44

Absent, we have just had the cine films put onto a dvd. What a success! One of the high-lights of Christmas. Tegan, I like to have a photo of myself looking glamorous, with the DGC. if you have to go into hospital you can take it with you on the pretence of wanting a photo of your DGC but really with the intention of showing what you look like when not lying in a hospital bed!
I've always done albums for 18th and 40th birthdays. DGS, 25, was talking the other day about his album which was called ''Man on the Water'' and was pictures of him from his first holiday on our narrowboat,aged 6 months, to a picture of him sailing his Dad's yacht aged 17.

absent Sun 26-Jan-14 06:54:02

I have the family archive which dates back to the century before last and as well as crates of photographs includes reels and reels of Super 8 cine film. I haven't tackled it yet.

Gally Sun 26-Jan-14 05:17:40

It's so comforting to read these posts and know that I am not the only one with boxes of photos waiting to be put into albums. I find I become very maudlin when looking at them, remembering the good times and family and friends who are no longer. I have 32 years worth stacked in old shoe boxes and each winter I promise myself that I will while away the dark evenings sorting them all out - maybe next year wink

POGS Sun 26-Jan-14 00:36:14

I love looking at the photo albums we have accumulated as a family.

I have just visited The Fleet Air Arm Museum as I lost my dad in June and like so many men he rarely spoke of his time in the service, especially the war years. It was so nice to be shown the archive paperwork and photos of the various aspects of his service history. I hope there will always be 'keepers' of photos reminding us of our history for what ever reason.

There is something comforting in flipping from photo to photo in an album, I just don't feel the same connection looking at them on a computer, I am sure that's just me. It's a bit like having a good old newspaper in your hand instead of flicking pages up and down on a computer.

I do worry that some of the later photos we have taken have changed colour whereas the photos taken years ago are as good as new.

I am sure I am not the only one when times are sad I get an enormous feeling of belonging and warmth when I look back at the happy, wonderful times in my life that have given me so much joy simply by looking at my albums.

Long live the album.

sunflowersuffolk Sat 25-Jan-14 21:01:37

I have the same problem, with boxes of old photos we don't often look at. Just been sorting some to put in albums. My brother has a gadget on his ordinary TV screen - an apple tv - which somehow links to all the photos on his computer - these are the recent digital photos and also very old photos he'd previously scanned in.

He puts the TV on, he plays some music, and all the photos randomly appear across the screen whilst you're listening to music. It was a great talking point, and apparently wasn't very expensive. It does loads of other things too, but I have no idea what! It means you suddenly see a photo you've forgotton about, brings back memories.

I suppose when you've got them all stored on computer - with back up, in theory, you could chuck the old photos. I coudn't bring myself to do that though.

toddwebb.wordpress.com/2008/04/17/making-memories-with-our-apple-tv/

rockgran Sat 25-Jan-14 19:29:41

I've scanned and computerised all my photos and slides and saved them online. I look at them all the time - much more often than the real albums. I keep quite a lot on my ipad and find I show them off more easily too. The real albums are now archived in the loft for my grandsons to discover in years to come. I've thrown out some of the modern ones which have deteriorated but the very old black and white are still in great condition so I couldn't bring myself to dispose of them.

Tegan Sat 25-Jan-14 19:05:23

The peel back ones that I used to use turned all the photos yellow [I assume they've improved them now]. I was on my way to Wilko's when I found the albums on sale at Smiths; I'll go there next week for a look. It's when my albums started to remind me of the albums passed on from our parents that I started to find them a bit sad. At least now, with digital cameras people only keep the good photos; my problem is not being able to throw awaythe rubbish ones, because I still feel that I am destroying a 'moment in time' [I've managed to throw out about 10 photos, but they've been of people outside of my family].

bikergran Sat 25-Jan-14 18:46:41

oh I love photo albums and I think we must keep them alive...yes it is great to have them on disc/pen drives/hard drives as back up etc...but there is nothing more enjoyable than sitting down with family and going through photo albums.."oh do you remember when we went to such n such a place"! ohh uncle Jims party.lol..etc etc photos tell a whole life story and there is something about getting out the photos...you don't need to have them all in albums..ours are all in a cardboard box impossible to sort out in to categories and my DDs who are now 38 and 31 still love to look through them, my elder DD tells me off for throwing any out or cutting them to fit in frames,I say bring back photos albums smile I am going to start one for GS of all the places we have been to.
Wilkinsons also sell photo albums, I find the ones with a sort of film that you peel back are better as you can then put any size of photo in rather than just 6 x 4. they can of course make you a little sad when you look at photos especially when some are no longer with us..also it does pain me to look at some when DH was a lot fitter before he became ill, but I suppose these are memories.

KatyK Sat 25-Jan-14 18:10:05

As a Christmas present to my DD one year I made up a photo album and put her name and 'This Is Your Life (so far)'. I then started with baby pictures, and came right up to the present, pictures of her as a child, a teenager, and so on, milestones, her engagement, wedding and then pictures of her own DD. She was thrilled.

AlieOxon Sat 25-Jan-14 16:44:00

anno you might have some ideas of who they are if you manage to date these photos. - I have one of my ggrandfather and when it was dated (by RootsChat) I knew how it also got to my NZ relatives,

AlieOxon Sat 25-Jan-14 16:40:55

For my 70th birthday, my sister got all the photos she had of me, and printed them out and put them in an A4 file. Lovely idea.
I have realised though that I can add to these, i have some she didn't know about.

Tegan Sat 25-Jan-14 16:14:53

I felt that, although I never knew my grandparents, they were part of my life because their photos were always in our house, so I grew up with an awareness of what they looked like. My daughter does the same with her husbands parents, both of them died years before her children were born but they 'see' them every day. I know this is narcissistic of me, but I want to put some photos of me together so the boys will realise one day that I wasn't always old and grey haired.

annodomini Sat 25-Jan-14 11:04:24

I have a very small photo album of pictures taken of my English granny's mother's family back in the 19th century. The problem is that, as I didn't acquire this album until the last of my Mum's family had died, I have no means of identification. Many of them I can guess at from family resemblances, but others are a complete mystery. sad Fortunately we do have an identified portrait of my great grandmother - a handsome woman with a white lacy cap. Sadly she died after giving birth to my great aunt.

Hunt Sat 25-Jan-14 10:12:54

We have photos of my husband's family going back to the late 19th century, stacks of them! We are in the process of putting them all in photo albums before we even start on our own. We find that our children aren't too bothered about their forebears but the next generation are. My DGS who is 25, was quite overcome recently when he tried on his great, great grandfather's opera hat!

durhamjen Sat 25-Jan-14 01:03:27

My six year-old granddaughter wants to know why there are not many photos of her in boxes or albums. It's because they are all on computers or SD cards. So I have promised her that this year we will go through the photos on grandad's computer and print some off for her.
One thing I have done for years is get the grandchildren to look at photos and find the ones they want for calendars. I usually have two, one in the kitchen and one in the living room. At the end of the year, I store the calendar for a record.