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02/14/2026 12:45:23 PM · #1 |
I'm currently dusting off a genealogy project I started years ago. Since then, both of my parents have passed.
Thankfully, my mother was very good about family history and documented everything on her side of the family and shared it via a 400-page family history book. It's a wonderful thing to have.
On the flip side, my dad had a treasure trove of old family photos, hardly any of which had names or stories attached to them. By the time I got ahold of these he had dementia and couldn't remember but only a few faces.
I recently discovered an old photo album my grandmother (on my dad's side) kept. Not a lot in it, but what is there is documented (names and dates on the backs). It's really helped fill in a few blanks!
One of my recent projects was going through hundreds of photos I had from a period of 1980 to 2000. These weren't organized at all. They were still in the photo sleeves you'd get from the film processing store and stuffed in a couple of old paper grocery bags. I've gotten these organized into photo albums and I've made sure to note the who, when, and where on most of them.
Anyway, sorry for the long story, but what I'm trying to say here is do yourself a favor and organize your old family photos (and your new ones!). If you're not printing some now, you should. Your future generations will thank you. AND ... if you have elderly family members, talk to them, get this kind of information from them while you can. |
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02/14/2026 01:13:47 PM · #2 |
Couldn't agree more! My father passed away 12 years ago and my mom has dementia. Cursing myself for not recording their recollections when they still could share them. Now I'm trying to assemble my family history from my own sketchy recollections and few old photos. I'm building my family tree using My heritage, it's pretty nice. And 23&me was also useful, thanks to it I found two branches of my family I had no idea about.
Funny how we get interested in our genealogy only late in life when it becomes much harder to put it together. |
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02/14/2026 08:23:21 PM · #3 |
Since digital photos rarely fit standard print sizes, I usually put a border to fit, and since you can't "write on the pack" of a digital photo I put a caption, place and date on the border; if I do print it any further writing is optional ...
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02/14/2026 09:37:11 PM · #4 |
After the fires of 2009 when our house was directly in the path of fire and only the early wind change saved it, I realized that photo albums burn. On the following day I bought a scanner and scanned all old photos and backed them up to the Internet.
I got interested in genealogy early in retirement but that passed. And it is true that it was too late by then to get the information first hand. I should have listened and asked questions when I was younger. |
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02/15/2026 12:25:41 AM · #5 |
Originally posted by LevT:
... Funny how we get interested in our genealogy only late in life when it becomes much harder to put it together. |
I worked on it hard back in the early to mid 80's when I was living in the LA area of California. On my days off I'd go visit the huge LDS library, viewing microfilm/fiche census data, etc. Also sent off for a lot of records, via mail. Then work got in the way and building a career. My mom did pick up and use much of the material I had collected (we both were using Family Tree Maker software and could share files). The mistake I made was in pursuing the data and hard facts but neglected getting the human side (photos and family stories).
Originally posted by GeneralE:
Since digital photos rarely fit standard print sizes, I usually put a border to fit, and since you can't "write on the pack" of a digital photo I put a caption, place and date on the border; if I do print it any further writing is optional ... |
That's some nice work Paul! I've always had a habit of cropping / fitting digital photos to a 4x6 format. My Sony cameras are set at that ratio. Mostly have to work the images taken with a phone to get them correct for printing.
Originally posted by MargaretNet:
After the fires of 2009 when our house was directly in the path of fire and only the early wind change saved it, I realized that photo albums burn. On the following day I bought a scanner and scanned all old photos and backed them up to the Internet. |
That's a great point. I've scanned all of the older stuff but did not get to the ones I just put in albums (80's-2000 period). Hmm. I've made a habit of keeping duplicate hard drives for my digital images and having them separated in case of a disaster (although if the whole house and garage got wiped out I'd be in trouble).
Next up is home movies and videos. I've digitized, and shared with family, the old 8mm film my parents had. Now I need to organize all of the rest of it (have three different formats - ugh). |
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02/15/2026 12:15:24 PM · #6 |
I'm fortunate that my sister did all that when our parents were still living and compos mentis :-) She's exceptionally good at that sort of thing. She's currently spearheading the Stanford Living History project for the University, or at least she was last I heard...
Congrats to all you folks who've worked so hard at this sort of project. |
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