CyclingInvestor
Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
This was one of my first retirement projects. About 4000 photos, plus all paper records (taxes, documents, etc). Cheap flatbed scanner worked great.
DW wants to scan the many photos that we have. A question for thoe who have done it... do you ever really look at them?
Assuming storage space is not an issue, I would just put them in something airtight or as airtight as possible and just leave them for the next generation to deal with. Not worth stressing over. Having them on your computer is nice and makes it more likely you’ll actually view them again. I doubt you’ll ever look at the originals again, but if you don’t have to deal with it, don’t.
OP here ...
I still need to do this. I retired last year and have been busy with projects, etc.
I bought a NAS and started ripping all our CDs onto it, to be used with our Sonos system.
After this, I plan to tackle scanning photos and putting them up on the NAS as well, so we can access the through Wifi in the house. Haven't decided yet whether to scan them myself or send them out.
Another update .... my M&D passed away last year and I have more boxes of pictures!!!
My Dad was into photography so, there are tons of slides and prints. Just going through them will take weeks!!!
One issue we have is when the kids were younger we bought picture packages of each of them, through the school, as they grow up. I bet this is common. Anyway, we now have boxes of old pics, nicely done of the kids ... nicely bound and many copies.
What do folks do with these??
I will definitely scan them but, what then? .... trash them?
Assuming storage space is not an issue, I would just put them in something airtight or as airtight as possible and just leave them for the next generation to deal with. Not worth stressing over. Having them on your computer is nice and makes it more likely you’ll actually view them again. I doubt you’ll ever look at the originals again, but if you don’t have to deal with it, don’t.
My mystery people are great, great uncles/aunts, cousins 3 removed, etc. Amazingly, I can identify my grandparents as kids. My grandparents never talked about their parents, but I know what they look like now, unless they just had random people posing with them.OTOH, which is more likely to be useful to genealogists a century from now: prints or DVDs/SSDs/NAS/data crystals? I’m going through and scanning a bunch of this stuff, too, and while I don’t intend to keep Dad’s slides of The Grand Canyon from our trip in 1968, I do hope to archive the original prints of great grandma from the 1870s. I’ve got a bunch of old tintypes, cartes des visites, and cabinet cards of mystery people probably from the 1860s - 1900s and they’re just too cool to throw away. But I do have space for a box or two.
OTOH, which is more likely to be useful to genealogists a century from now: prints or DVDs/SSDs/NAS/data crystals? I’m going through and scanning a bunch of this stuff, too, and while I don’t intend to keep Dad’s slides of The Grand Canyon from our trip in 1968, I do hope to archive the original prints of great grandma from the 1870s. I’ve got a bunch of old tintypes, cartes des visites, and cabinet cards of mystery people probably from the 1860s - 1900s and they’re just too cool to throw away. But I do have space for a box or two.
Quicker than scanning is to take a photograph of the slide or print.