Old photos of distant passed relatives.

[LifeisNOTlikeemmerdalefarm]

DM died nearly 2 years ago and I have just started to go through the hundreds and hundreds of photos. I'm now the oldest person in the family on my parents side.
Fortunately she wrote the names on the back of a lot.
Some of the people I have no idea how they are related to me and my brothers.

I feel disrespectful throwing them out but also don't want to leave to our children to sort as they will have no clue who they are.

What did you do with your old photos.

Watching with interest, as I'm the custodian in my generation!

Scan then and upload to ancestry?

I wouldn’t just throw them. I’d message the wider circle of family and ask if they want them.

i don’t have any photos of my grandfather when he was younger, as when his parents died we presume all the photos went to his younger sister as no one seems to know what happened to them. She was adopted when he was 19 and already gone off to war, so he didn’t really have a relationship with her - I imagine one day her kids may find a bunch of photos of my grandfather and his brothers and have no idea who they are.

I would start researching my family tree so I could work out who all the people are.

I actually have a tree but sadly few photos. One of the great joys of researching has been other people sharing photos online of our mutual ancestors. A man in Malta emailed me a photo of my great great grandmother who I'd spent a lot of time researching as she was hard to pin down.

If there are any with notable links to an area (eg, were a business or similar, or have identifiable locations in the background) then the local history library may be interested.

@Neodymium we are the family. Both grandparents on each side only had one child
Mum and Dad.

I'll have a look at ancestry. Found 3 from the first day of the first world war.
On the back it says the 3 lads were killed.
I do remember my grandma was born in 1905 I presume these were her brothers.
My granddad (her husband was born in 1915 they didn't marry until 1934 mum was born in 1935.
It was because most of the men in the area were killed in ww1 she married a lot younger man.

When I went through my parents photos ( no names on back ) I kept any of significance ( he was in RAF ) , photos of queen walking a line up as a very young queen also getting on the royal barge .
Photos of mum at a works do with others.
But ones of unknown couples , or holiday destinations , views etc , I got rid .
The rest I put in photo albums .
Having said all that , it was 10 years ago , and I've never looked at them since.
So really as others have said , take copies on your phone / cloud / flash drives etc and get rid.