What to Do with an Inherited Historic Family Photo Collection

Inheriting an historic family photo collection is both an honor, and a big responsibility. A family photo collection can contain prints that date back more than a century, and in some cases, will contain all the information you and your relatives will ever know about an ancestor. If you have inherited a family photo collection, you may want to consider the following suggestions.

Decide if you need to find an alternate way to store the photo collection

If the family photo collection you've inherited is of significant age, you may likely find that the albums or scrapbooks holding the photos are significantly deteriorated. If you decide you want to relocate your historic family photos, be sure to use only archival quality papers, boxes, and photo albums.

Create labels for any photos that you can identify

These labels will be for placing next to the photos in a scrapbook or album. Otherwise, try to add the information in a text box once you've scanned the photos and created digital copies. You may find that very few of the original prints in your family's photo collection are labeled. You may be able to identify some relatives by finding them in other photos which were labeled. You can estimate the year range of a photo by estimating the ages of the subjects pictured and then comparing that information with their birth or death year. If you are not certain of an ancestor's birth or death year, try finding them in family bibles or documents, or even free online genealogy resources such as Family Search.

Decide on the most sensible way to share the photo collection with extended family

You will probably want to share an historic family photo collection with extended family. You will need to decide on the most sensible way to do so. You have several options. The most involved would be to scan each photo and print copies to give out. Another option is to burn all of the scanned photos to CD, copies of which you can give out to family members. Before going through all of the trouble to burn multiple discs, though, consider uploading your digital photos to a site like PhotoBucket. This way, all you have to do is simply create a private album, share password with relatives, and then transfer the job of ordering prints to them. With this option, you are relieved of the substantial effort required to burn multiple CD's or print endless photos. Additionally, this gives your extended family members ultimate control over which prints they have, and in what sizes. They might appreciate this more because they will each have their own plans for the photos, and will likely want various sizes and copies for frames, scrapbooks, etc.