Raise your hand if you have a stash of miscellaneous pictures thrown in a box somewhere. I did!.. up until a couple of weeks ago.
Before my Mom died (13 years ago) and Dad (6 years ago), I’m thankful that my sister, Barb, helped to organize the last of our old family pictures and some heirlooms. She wrote names on the original photos of people we didn’t know or recognize as Dad shared the information.
My home housed the last of our family treasures. With us moving, I suggested we split the final batch between all 5 siblings. God forbid if something would happen to this memorabilia, it shouldn’t be together in one spot.
One afternoon last month, Barb, my brother Tim, and I got to work. We divided, conquered, and made 5 piles. With a couple more boxes to go, one more get-together will bring this project to a close. We have a pile of pictures that need to be copied and split up the other photos so each of us can have some originals to keep. I marked all that are now in my possession and have them in a safe storage place.
I invested in a Picture Keeper. It’s a thumb drive attached to an app that lets you scan or take pictures of photos. It also has great features that can enhance a picture, erase unwanted images in the background, or change black-and-white photos to color. It’s a handy little gadget. I took pictures of most of the shared photos, just in case.
Preserving family heirlooms and pictures is so important to the future generations of our family. Hopefully, my kids and their cousins will appreciate all the work we did to ensure they know who’s in the photos and how they’re related to our family.
We are finding out quickly that unless the stories are written down and pictures marked, the people who know aren’t here anymore to tell us. Sad but true.
If you have physical photos stored in a closet, take them out, dust them off, and document them properly. If you have a large number, don’t be overwhelmed. Make it a priority and take out a small handful once a week then store them properly. Your family will thank you!
Picture Keeper does not endorse me. I think it’s a great investment for saving photos and I’m glad I bought one!
Nicole MacPherson
THANK YOU for this reminder. I have a box of photos that need to be organized. I’m generally good at keeping on top of it, but the last year or so I have been terrible about it!
Judy Palermo
Haha…the task was actually fun. It brought back memories, as well as, helps future generations from knowing “who’s who”. It’s a good rainy day project!
Writer McWriterson
This is such a great idea! My mom has boxes of pictures in her basement, and I would love to take on a project like this with her.
She also has slides—if you know what those are—of pictures we want to convert to something like a DVD. If you have any recommendations, I would be eternally grateful!
Judith E Palermo
That’s great! Thank goodness we learned the importance of going through old photos while there was someone to still ask questions to. Now my kids can just enjoy them. We have a ton of slides too! Last year my siblings and I got together and went through them..one by one..lol. My brother just texted us all this week and is converting them to a thumb drive for each of us. I think he used a company to do it. I’ll ask and get back to you!
Writer McWriterson
Yay!! Thank you!
Judith E Palermo
That’s great! Thank goodness we learned the importance of going through old photos while there was someone to still ask questions to. Now my kids can just enjoy them. We have a ton of slides too! Last year my siblings and I got together and went through them..one by one..lol. My brother just texted us all this week and is converting them to a thumb drive for each of us. I think he used a company to do it. I’ll ask and get back to you!
Suz
I tackled quite a bit of this during the pandemic. I mostly sent off pictures to have them scanned for me, as there were so many! But, there are still more pictures and newspaper clippings—it kind of feels never-ending. I am the only one left, so I have everything from my Mother, Father, Brother, Paternal Grandparents and Uncle. *sigh* I feel like I’m the Keeper Of All Things!
How awesome that you guys could tackle this in a group effort.
Judy Palermo
Wow..you ARE the keeper of all! It’s such an important job. I’m sure you felt good after you completed it. I still have many photo albums and pictures of my now adult kids. They are marked and organized so I am not digitizing them right now. They actually still like to thumb through the books! As long as there are no pictures thrown in boxes, I feel ok having albums.