Can I throw these things away?….

[Meduse]

I’ve inherited the most wonderful archive of family papers from both sides of the family.I have documents going back nearly 300 years.Obviously I’m cataloguing,keeping and displaying most of it with some being donated to county archives.However I still have nameless photos and odd receipts etc that I can’t really see the need to keep …. But … should I?? Any advice would be appreciated. So enjoying this new hobby but I’m also overwhelmed by the amount!!

Talk to the archive. But as an archivist myself, if the photos are definitely unidentifiable they aren’t much use, sadly.

It sounds like a lovely collection :)

I'd keep the nameless photos because you never know who else out there might be researching the same family, and they might have photos of the same people and know who they are. If the receipts have addresses of shops etc, then they give clues to where people in the family were living at different times.

Maybe have a UFO (unidentified family object) box and put them in there.

I would definitely keep.
As you go along, you'll learn new things which might make these items more meaningful.
They might not seem useful or significant now... but with additional research you might realise their significance.