I don't want to keep old family pictures

[Sweetener12]

So the other day I was doing a big cleaning around the house and found a bunch or very old photo albums that belong to my father's family. My father passed away several years ago and these albums are full of his grandparent's photos, I've never knew these people and I'm not even interested, so I wanted to get rid of them but my DM is strongly against. She says this is the memory, even though she's never knew her DH's grandparents and aunts, etc. She doesn't want me to get rid of them and keeps telling I have to digitize these pics and save them somehow. I find this to be completely senseless, tho.
What do you think? AIBU to not wanting to keep the photos of the people I've never met?

YANBU! You say neither you nor your DM know the people in these pictures, so what can you tell about them? What can you do with them? Your father was the only one who needed these albums because he was the only one who knew these people. I'd get rid of themm this is logical. Of course, you can compromise and digitize them, maybe just some of them, not every sigle one, but still I wouldn't. I can spend hours restoring my family's old pic in Photoglory but these are the people I know !

Please dont throw them away. Either give to your mum or does your father have any living relatives? A sister or brother? Or a niece or nephew or even a cousin?
I would offer the photos to them.

Do you not have any cousins who would like them?

If she wants them then she can have them. Who has time for scanning a million photos that you'll never look at?

I love photos like this that my gran kept. Just like I love the family stories of my great great grand parents and co.

They are part of my history.

I would keep them, if not for yourself but for your dcs, their dcs etc.... I woould also keep a record of who is who . I’d enlist your mum for that

@GinDaddyRedux
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@Ponoka7
@MrsHuntGeneNotJeremyObviously
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Just several people, but still.
Guys. I do not know these people in the pictures and my DM also does not! How could we pass them on and tell about these people to the kids or nephews if we don't ven know the names of some of them? These albums are one of my father's belongings and they make no sense to ma and my DM as they contain NO pics of his parents (my DM met only his parents). That's why I see no point in keeping them or passing them on.

@Sirzy @WinterIsGone yeah, as far as I know, there are no other relatives interested, my father was the only child of his parents.
@PurpleDaisies THANK YOU!
@burnoutbabe yeah, I don't mind keeping like 10 of them? But not 4 albums!
@FearlessSwiftie how long does it take for you?
@ChewChewIsMySpiritAnimal YES, I'll зкифидн just give to her to digitize if she wants.

Yanbu. I would feel the same. Give it to your dm to keep. They might as well be strangers to you.

I'd pass them onto other people. Some people (including future generations) may be very interested in family tree.
Is there anyone elderly in your fathers family that might be able to identify them/take them.

Take them out of albums, and put them in something like a shoebox that takes up less space. Let your mum or anyone else with connections go through and write names etc on the back.

As others have said, you can get them digitised pretty easily and cheaply - offer to pay for a selection to be done as a present for her.

It's a bit callous to chuck them out just because you're not interested, when they clearly matter to your mum.

There is no reason why you should be responsible for getting them into digital format, if you don't want to. It's an extremely time-consuming job to scan and upload old photos and if you have no interest in them I'd leave to someone else in the family who is interested. Don't get rid of them though - this is your family's history and you not being interested in it is beside the point.

YANBU. Maybe someone on the thread who has an interest in old photos of people they don’t know and who can’t be identified by anyone on the family might take them off your hands?

You’re not unreasonable to want to declutter, but if it were me I’d pass them onto DM since she has an interest in them, even if she doesn’t know the people in them. She can do what she likes with them, then. I think the shoebox suggestion is a good idea, though.

@MsEllany that's the best!!!

It’s also ok to let go. It’s not your responsibility. You are free to dump them! Perhaps just do it rather than making a big fuss about it. It’s nobody else’s business.

@Sweetener12 as a suggestion for how your mum may be feeling, she may feel like she ‘has’ to hold on to these for her deceased DH. We had this with my Grandma - she held on to the most random of stuff because it had belonged to my Grandad’s mum or whoever; and she felt somehow “disloyal” to him if she were to just throw it out. It caused a lot of upset before we chose to leave it be.

From her point of view, even though it’s not logical, it may feel like you’re effectively saying you want to bin your family history. I know it doesn’t make sense, especially as you can’t identify anyone and for all you know you’re holding onto beloved memories of your great aunt deidre’s neighbours; but it may explain why she’s so keen to hold onto them and may mean you need to tread a bit carefully with your mum?

If DM feels so strongly about it she can do it. Give her an ultimatum and if she doesn’t pick them up in the next two weeks tell her you will bin, or give to the local museum/archive/ library type thing.

You could probably sell these. I have a victorian album of photos which I brought on holiday and another customer wanted it too. Also look at Vivian Meier's work... One man's trash, is another man's treasure.

I see a similar problem in my future... My dad's family were big into keeping things like photos, and interesting letters. My dad inherited the collection from his parents and their parents. Now they are taking up a good 2 or 3 large drawers in my parents spare room.

At the moment it doesn't matter, because even though dad passed away 3 years ago, mums house is BIG, and it's no skin off her nose to keep storing them. But if she were to drop dead tomorrow, we'd have a problem... In theory, I think it's an absolute travesty to throw away any family history stuff, but I don't REALLY want it all in my house. The thing is, my sister most DEFINITELY won't want it in her house either! I'm moderately interested in family history, but as far as I know, she's got NO interest.

I suspect I'll end up taking it all, and will make a decent effort at digitizing the most interesting stuff, and then disposing of it. I'll offer it around to other extended family members, but I can't see them having an interest either!

Even if you don't know them, it doesn't mean that someone else won't be interested in the future - there may be someone who can piece it all together, based on photos/info that they have. I do have sympathy for you though, on not wanting to keep something you have no connection to. Which is why I think you should give them to your mum.
I've got stuff in my house from she's family (acquired during my ILs divorce). I've put them in a box in a cupboard because one day my kids might want that information.

Slightly off topic but when GM dies we found lots of letters and pictures she had kept. We didn't want to just chuck them in bin but we didn't want to keep them either. We had a burning ceremony (chucked them in chimnea). Old family pics we didn't know, we chucked them. I actually never take pictures at all. My photos are in my heart and head. Easy storage.

@Sweetener12 The pictures were digitized by a local photo office, so I can't tell you how much time did they need, I just came back the next day and took the memory card with the pics. As for the restoring, I use photoglory and it restores almost everything automatically. I had about 50 pictures and it took me about 2 hours or something like that. Not sure exactly, sorry.

Without names, dates or other information about the people in these photos it does become a little meaningless. Are there any which are interesting historically, artistically or is it just fuzzy family snaps? I have some photos from my parents albums which mean nothing emotionally to me but I like the image, the feel, the era.

Your DM can take them to a specialist company to get them digitized if she wants, why is that your job? If she wants to keep some of them it would be best to do a ruthless edit with her and select a representative 25% of them, rest are binned. We all keep too much sentimental rubbish.

This makes me feel really sad. We had an elderly neighbour die some years ago and he had no family and didn't own much. We ended up with a box of his things and a family photo album was included. There were pictures of him as a baby and young child with his parents, along with letters from his mother who clearly adored him. I've never been able to get rid of them. I feel like - that was a whole life I don't want to erase. It doesn't matter that I didn't know them.

My old ones (1890s etc) are some of my most precious things.
Could you give them to a cousin instead or a sibling rather tahn get rid of them. you could also scan them and upload them to a public family tree website so descendants (s long as the internet continues to exist) can see them eg I have my great uncle's photo who died in 1917. His grand daughter had never seen a photo of him ever and knew little about him. She found it on line and it made her week - she was absolutely delighted (he died leaving 3 children under about 4 so they always knew a lot more about their step grand father than grandfather)

I think you do have to think about what family might want in future.

my aunt died recently and her daughters found she'd got rid of her own wedding album. She had a bad marriage (but the girls seem surprised she found it THAT bad) but they are bereft not to have any family pics.