Ugh, it’s so overwhelming and time consuming, I just can’t get my arms around that daunting project.
Photo organizing made easy, but the hard part is how to get started.
Think of preserving your family history like building a house. You need a plan on what the end result will be. What are your options?
- Do you want to keep paper photos, but placed into archiving storage containers?
- If downsized, do or will you have room for how many storage boxes, or do you want them to disappear?
- Do you want to consider digitizing photos on a thumbnail disk? Or an iCloud solution?
- Do I want to put my stories, family history and legacy into a coffee table book that one can flip through while watching TV?
- Do you want photos to come through a digital frame and view them all the time? Your family can send new photos of grandchildren at real time.
Yes to all of the above.
Let’s start:
Find a place you can gather all of the media in one place. Dining room, basement (if dry and well lit) or spare bedroom. Have a long table you can work off.
- Collect pictures in frames, children’s art work, special newspaper articles, awards, certificates, and so on.
- This “Hunt and Gather” session will give you an opportunity to truly evaluate what you want your end result to be considered.
- In this early stage evaluate WHAT AND WHY you are doing this. Were you born outside of the U. S. and had an interesting upbringing? What stories do want to tell as the photos are assembled?
- Do you want your children to gather their legacy so they can pass it down to generations with stories and facts?
- So many people are taking the 23 and me DNA testing and finding relatives they never knew they had.
Most families have an average of 10,000 photos. Either paper copies, on their phone, on their PC, laptop, iPad, tablet, slides, VHS tapes, and 8 mm film. VHS tapes can disintegrate over the years, so you want to make sure those are saved.