Community Chat

[Jordan2]

My father was a camera buff he took so many pictures of his family, trips, etc. Most of these are on slides, I don't have a projector nor do I have the room to store them. I will probably end up throwing them out, but in the back of my mind I hear my dear sweet mother saying " don't throw away photos of people that are still alive".

[shoptilyadropagain]

I'm not an overly sentimental person so It doesn't bother me to throw them out.  I went through my photos during the initial Covid period and tossed out quite a bit.  I also keep several family photos in a private directory on my facebook page.  These are photos that aunts or relatives have posted and I've copied and saved them in that directory.  

[geezerette]

I gave away all of my photos like that to my younger relatives--whether they wanted them or not!😆

Let them keep or toss them.

[mimomof4]

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@Venezia wrote:

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@mimomof4 wrote:

I am going through the same thing right now. We are cleaning out my Mother in Laws home and I have found drawers and bins of old photos.  I feel horrible throwing them out not because I am emotional attached to anyone in the photos but because I feel like I'm throwing out history.  I have put several aside to see if Antique stores will purchase them, if not out they go.  I even found a Certificate of Citizenship from a relative whom imigrated from Canada to the US in the early 1900's.  

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@mimomof4 - I would certainly keep that safe and perhaps try to contact a descendant of that relative, who might want the document.

It could be important to someone.  JMO.

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@Venezia The irony is that my husband and his sisters are the descendents and they don't have any interest to keep excess clutter at their homes.

I have kept these documents aside and will see if there is a historical society or church where their grandmother grew up may want the documents.  

[Trailrun23]

One mistake to avoid is saving all your old photos for your kids. If you don't know who is in the pictures, neither will they. We asked our kids if they wanted any and they all said no. I am sure they will change their mind when they are older, but we can't continue using our home as a storage unit since we need to downsize. 
My DD offered to scan a lot of old photos for us so that helped when we were going through boxes of old photos... DH has a much bigger family than I do...and he has an uncle who wrote published book about their family who emigrated from Denmark. DH is a second generation American. I have hit a dead end when trying to trace my family back very far. 
DH and I decided to throw away any photographs if we didn't know who the person in the picture was and didn't know when or where it was taken. We ended up with a huge pile of photos that went into the trash.  Fortunately my grandfather was good about always putting the date and names on the back of photos. It is hard to start going through old yearbooks, photos, etc and to think they only mean something to yourself.