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Post by Deleted on Jun 30, 2014 11:58:38 GMT
My mom passed a few years ago, and I inherited all her pictures. I have spent the last few years going through them.
I hate the thought of just throwing away pictures, but I didn't want to keep them all. I'm happy with just a few pics each of major events.
I did scrapbooks for each of my nieces/nephews (just the simple type Albums made easy ones) that I've given them when they graduate high school and for my sister. The last one goes next weekend for my nieces graduation.
I sent some to relatives.
I scanned a lot of older ones and uploaded on Ancestry.com so other relatives can access.
The ones I'm keeping, I've put in labeled iris photo cases, so easy to find everything.
I'm doing my own scrapbooks (just 8x8, Albums made easy ones too). Just finished high school/college years. Now I'm working on my childhood ones.
We have a family reunion this weekend, so i have labeled envelopes with pictures for about 5 different relatives to give them there.
I'm close to being done, I'm so excited! I know no one IRL will understand, so I had to share here. It has been such a major undertaking. Many of the older ones were not labeled, so sorting was very difficult. My mom also had doubles of a lot of them. I think I have sorted at least 5,000 pictures if not more.
They've been taking up a corner of my bedroom for 4 years now (I had 4 large plastic totes full when I started) I'm determined to finish up my childhood scrapbook, then the 1990s, then do one final one of older pics from before I was born.
I have a weeks vacation end of August, so my goal is to be completely done by the end of that week. It will be so freeing to not have that hanging over my head anymore. It's not that I haven't enjoyed working on it, but it's been such a long, time consuming project. It's also been a big expense. I used WRMK albums and page protectors. I've given away 7 12x12 full albums so far to family, not including my own albums. Realistically though, no one else in my family would have done it, and I really did not like having ALL the family photos at my house (what if there was a fire!!!) Now at least if something where to happen with my photos, i know other family members have more I could copy. Also, I know no one would have looked at the pictures if they were all just thrown into bins. Now, people can actually enjoy them.
Whew....if you read all that.
Anyone else tackled a large photo project like that?
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Post by mama2three on Jun 30, 2014 13:07:14 GMT
What a great accomplishment. I know the feeling of it hanging over you. After my FIL died a few years ago, my SIL gave me all the photos of him because she wanted to make a scrapbook complete with stories, quotes, poems, etc. There are hundreds of photos, some in frames, some glued on display boards from the memorial. It's a daunting project taking up too much room, not the least because I don't know the stories she wants to include in the book, and have other things I want to scrap more.
Good for you for getting through all your boxes. I'm sure your relatives will love having the old photos. I'm also amazed at all the albums you made. That's a lot of work. I hope your relatives appreciate all your effort. If you still have duplicate photos of ancestors, consider giving labeled photos to some of the older kids in the family. When my niece was 12, that's all she asked for for her birthday -old photos.
My grandmother saved everything and had drawers full of very old wedding, birthday, anniversary announcements, newspaper clippings of family members, etc, some of which she had inherited from her parents. Over many years, my mom has been gifting these to the extended family to give cousins their grandparents' 50th wedding anniversary announcement or their father's birth announcement, etc. Everyone has always appreciated that she didn't just throw them away.
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Post by LisaDV on Jun 30, 2014 13:40:08 GMT
That's awesome! I'm sure everyone appreciates your hard work. I know I would be grateful for such an album.
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Post by crazy4scraps on Jun 30, 2014 14:46:08 GMT
What a treasure you are giving to your family by doing all that! My parents never took many photos of us growing up, my older sister was the shutterbug in the family. As such, over the years she had snagged up and is hoarding all the photos that my mom had from over the years including all of our school photos etc. that probably mean nothing to her. I think I can count on one hand the number of photos I have of myself as a child from before I started taking my own pics as a teen.  Now our mom is gone, and my hopes for even getting copies of those pics are slim to none. If anything happens to my sister, I'm sure her kids will just throw all of those photos away.  |
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GiantsFan
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Jun 27, 2014 14:44:56 GMT
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Post by GiantsFan on Jun 30, 2014 15:09:58 GMT
What a great thing you have done. And, I commiserate with you. When my grandparents died, I was given the family photos "because you scrapbook". They were loose in old boot boxes. Hardly any of them are labeled. I scanned 200+ in, but I don't know who some of the people are. So I hosted a family dinner and had my mom, sister and aunt come over to label the older ones. My mom knew I wanted to get this done and jumped in and started labeling and sorting. Rather than help label, my aunt was using it as a time to go down memory lane. Then she was put off that I wanted to give her the photos of her kids and family. "They should all be kept together". WTHeck?? I don't want to be responsible for her stuff. Anyway, I'm still left with a large amount of unlabeled old photos. I just hate to get rid of them. I bought acid free boxes and they are stored in our hall closet.
The good thing about this project is that I was given the family bible (from 1880's) and a quilt from my Great Grandmother. Both are stored in acid free boxes along with the photos.
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scrappinmama
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Jun 26, 2014 12:54:09 GMT
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Post by scrappinmama on Jun 30, 2014 15:39:28 GMT
I am working on a vacation from 2 years ago. I do a little every month. I had so many photos from that trip, and I'm having a hard time picking which pictures to put in the album.
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MDscrapaholic
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Post by MDscrapaholic on Jun 30, 2014 15:56:55 GMT
I'm in the process right now of going through photos with my Mom. When my kids were little (80's-90's) I made duplicates of all photos to send to her because we did not live close by. I've scrapped some of mine, but Mom is trying to give me back the duplicates that I already have lol.
She is telling me who is who is older photos so I can capture at least the names and dates. I don't know if I'll ever scrap them but it'll be nice to know who they are if I do!
Congratulations on undertaking that big job and getting it done!
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loco coco
Pearl Clutcher
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Post by loco coco on Jun 30, 2014 16:00:41 GMT
wow good for you! Did your family appreciate the albums? Some people dont know how much time and $ go into them so I had to ask.
I love the WRMK albums made easy, doing an 8.5x11 right now and it has been a lot of fun.
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kellyinmn
Shy Member
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Post by kellyinmn on Jun 30, 2014 16:10:43 GMT
I need to do this since I received all of my grandma's photo albums and scrapbooks. I'm not touching the scrapbooks because they are fabulous! I love looking at them but I need to get the photos out of those gross non-acid free photo albums with the sticky pages that hold the pic in place and the plastic sheet that goes over them. It will be a good job for a snow day:)
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jawebb
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Post by jawebb on Jun 30, 2014 21:32:18 GMT
That is amazing! I can only imagine how awesome you will feel when you are done! I have similar piles, boxes, bins of photos and memorabilia to organize and am currently doing nothing! I feel very overwhelmed!
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Post by anniefb on Jun 30, 2014 22:21:19 GMT
What a fantastic thing you've done and what a great treasure for other family members. I've only tackled a small number of family pictures. Sadly, when my mother took over my grandmother's photos, there were so few labelled that we've lost a great repository of knowledge. I have hundreds of pictures, but no idea of who most of the people were. That's one of the special things about scrapbooking - we're 'curating' family treasures for future generations.  |
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Post by zeutdog86 on Jun 30, 2014 22:33:38 GMT
My mom watched my dds when they were young and once they both were in school full time she needed a 'project' to keep her busy. I set her up scanning photos at my house. Everyday she came over a couple hours before the girls got home and scanned. She did all of her photos first to the tune of over 7,000+. Afterwards, I put them on flash drives, one for each of her six kids. Everybody has a copy!  Then she did my photos and my sister's photos. Bless her heart, that project lasted a while. My brother scanned all the slides and between the photos and slides made a great dvd for their 50th anniversary. I am in the process of transferring all the videotapes, 8mm tapes and movies onto the computer. It is going slowly but I'm getting there. |
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Post by fruitysuet on Jun 30, 2014 22:35:36 GMT
Wow - an amazing achievement, I don't think I would have had the capacity to maintain going through so many photos in such a systematic manner. OTOH I'm rather envious that you had so many photos. My parents didn't own a camera until I was about 8 nor were they very sentimental as I know my mum threw away many of the photos that we did have. Neither do we have many older photo either, I would hazard a guess that it would be fifty tops.
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Post by mama2three on Jul 1, 2014 13:20:56 GMT
I'm rather envious that you had so many photos. My parents didn't own a camera until I was about 8 nor were they very sentimental as I know my mum threw away many of the photos that we did have. Neither do we have many older photo either, I would hazard a guess that it would be fifty tops. Consider asking extended family to share photos, especially heritage photos of common ancestors. I set up a Shutterfly site, invited all the cousins I know, and suggested they share their parents' and grandparents' photos as a way of archiving and sharing family history. I scanned my grandmother's 100 yr old photo album and scrapbooks.
It has been an amazing experience. The site now includes people from 4 different branches of the family. Cousins invited cousins invited others and I've "met" distant cousins I didn't know about. They have shared photos of my great great grandparents, added comments identifying the ancestors in each photo, answered questions about what event was represented, and generally filled in gaps and mysteries in the family tree and in family stories that we assumed were lost forever. We've all enjoyed getting to know each other on the site. I learned that the unidentified people in a wonderful photo I have from my grandmother were an elderly cousins' grandparents (my great grandmother's aunt/uncle). He was thrilled to find a photo of them. It can't hurt to ask, and it's always good to share pictures more widely so they're not lost in the event of a catastrophe.
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Deleted
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Apr 19, 2024 9:05:55 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Jul 28, 2014 19:16:02 GMT
Good for you. If you are bored when you finish this project, I will send you my address and you can come help me with mine! LOL Seriously, I have scanned a lot of photos of my DD from before I had a digital camera, but the amount of photos I am swimming in is insane. You should really be proud of yourself.
Ann
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Post by berta147 on Jul 29, 2014 19:44:36 GMT
What an undertaking! Congrats to you.
My oldest sister divided all our family photos amoung us four girls. Thankfully she did not cut any in half. I have access to all the photos except for one sis, who sadly does not communicate with us.
I have scanned as many as I can so far, and I know what a lot of work it is.
You should be proud!
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Deleted
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Apr 19, 2024 9:05:55 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Jul 31, 2014 22:51:33 GMT
What a job that must have been! I hope your family appreciates all that you did. My SIL does a lot of our geneology and last year made a wonderful family tree with a bunch of old family pictures. It was such a wonderful gift for all of us.
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Post by lazytown on Sept 8, 2014 19:05:04 GMT
Congratulations on finishing that project! I have a huge undertaking to manage all of my immediate family's photos, and I know that my Mom has a big collection of jumbled-up, unsorted family photos. She never got around to doing many albums and the ones she did do were non-archival and are falling apart. I'm the only daughter and I would like to take on the task, but it will be a big one for me.
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Now our mom is gone, and my hopes for even getting copies of those pics are slim to none. If anything happens to my sister, I'm sure her kids will just throw all of those photos away. 
Then she did my photos and my sister's photos. Bless her heart, that project lasted a while. 
