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Ethical dilemmas

What to do with old family photos

10 replies

Diverami · 13/08/2021 18:31

An elderly relative died recently. He had been declining for several years and about 4 years ago reached the stage where he needed someone to be his attorney to manage his finances, health needs etc. He never wanted help and accepted it only extremely reluctantly (because he ran out of money for food, cigarettes etc), so his affairs (money, housekeeping etc) got very bad. There was no will, but a lot of possessions. Amongst things which need to be disposed of are heaps of photos. For 50 or 60 years, he has been taking photos of scenery or friends. Some of them are impressive works of art (such as two adult swans followed by about 12 babies swimming to somewhere). Measured by storage boxes, there may be 100 or 200 litres of them. Many are in albums, but most are in Snappy Snap envelopes now in the storage boxes. The only information written about most of them is the year in which they were taken (for instance, 1960) - no names or locations. My problem is that they need to be disposed of. A very good friend of his has gone through some of them and taken pictures where he or his family are in them. More will be offered at his wake in a week or two. But then what? There will be many pictures of people we don't know and places we don't know. I had an unworthy thought that I would send all they mystery photos to the Getty Museum and let them sort them out as to whether they are worthy to be kept or not but I recognise that as an unsuitable solution. I hate to throw away things of value -but valuable to whom?

OP posts:
MagpiePi · 13/08/2021 18:48

I feel your pain!
I think you are doing the right thing by offering them at the wake. Maybe you should make it clear that any left after the wake will be binned and somebody might offer to take them all off your hands!
But ultimately if they are of people or places you don't know then they aren't really of value to you, and, unless your relative was famous in some way or they are of social value, like street scenes which show a lost era, I doubt that a museum or archive would be interested. It feels harsh to just chuck them away, but if thy are all still in the packets it is unlikely that your relative really thought that much of them, I am sure the joy for him was in the taking of them, rather than the looking through afterwards.

I have a huge box of hundreds of slides that were taken by my grandparents which I have been meaning to go through but it means loading them into a slide projector, and then even if there are ones I want to keep I wil have to get them printed or saved digitally somehow.

RuthTopp · 13/08/2021 18:53

When the last of my parents died , also was left with large pile of photos.
Be ruthless with those of views only , I also threw out those of people I did not know .
Those of people I did know , gave to them and said throw if not wanted. The rest ( of my parents / myself etc as a child ) have gone up in the attic, well wrapped. to be chucked away by my dc when I die

HoikingUpMyBigGirlPantss · 14/08/2021 16:13

I inherited a trunk load when DPs and aunt died as well. It took me several weeks to go through the slides and photos (lots of holiday snaps and friends who I dont recognise and must be long gone). Really old family photos had luckily been labelled with names so have shared on a family tree website with cousins, but apart from childhood photos (which I snapped and zipped to my siblings), the rest got binned I'm afraid as they wouldn't mean anything much to the next generation.

HoikingUpMyBigGirlPantss · 14/08/2021 16:19

MagpiePi i got a cheap slidescanner from Amazon but I think there are companies online that will scan slides for you (not sure of the cost). I used digital converters to convert old cine film of my DPs wedding to mp files and was lovely to see DPs in their prime of life 💕

MagpiePi · 16/08/2021 13:30

@HoikingUpMyBigGirlPantss

MagpiePi i got a cheap slidescanner from Amazon but I think there are companies online that will scan slides for you (not sure of the cost). I used digital converters to convert old cine film of my DPs wedding to mp files and was lovely to see DPs in their prime of life 💕
I do have the slide projector that my parents had, but its getting round to loading them all into the cassettes that seems so daunting. Tbf, my mum was going to go through them after my grandmother died, but that wasover 20 years ago. My mum died about 15 years ago and I still haven't made a start! One day... Grin
thumpingrug · 19/08/2021 22:00

Talk to you local councils history centre archive. They will often take photos as it adds to the local records. Most will be embargoed for 50-70 or so years to ensure that anyone in the photos is dead prior to them being made available. They have the correct environment to store things and are very grateful for often very mundane things.

PrincessNutNuts · 06/10/2021 21:39

Do you have a local group or even a Facebook group which shares historical photos of the local area?

They might be interested in going through them?

Ellmau · 23/10/2021 14:21

Talk to you local councils history centre archive. They will often take photos as it adds to the local records. Most will be embargoed for 50-70 or so years to ensure that anyone in the photos is dead prior to them being made available. They have the correct environment to store things and are very grateful for often very mundane things.

Not from OP's description of them as unidentified people and pretty pictures in unidentified locations - and probably from the relative's holidays so not even of the local area.

lljkk · 23/10/2021 14:27

I had similar when my mom died (keen amateur photographer).
I picked out ones I liked.
I didn't feel obliged to keep pictures of anon people or pics I didn't like.

I often use old photos of pretty places as thank you cards, especially when I sell on eBay.

SolasAnla · 23/10/2021 14:29

Contact the local historical societies and give them a chance to examine the collection and either accept them into storage or not

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