Keeper of the family photos

Monello

Smarter than the average bear
PREMO Member
I was able to scoop up most of the old photos at my childhood home. So I guess that makes me the keeper of the photos. I scan them when I get a chance and post them to an album I have on facebook. A lot of the extended family has access to them. Most enjoy seeing pictures from decades ago of long ago passed relatives.

What I find interesting, in picking apart decrepit albums is that those things were in the house the entire time I was growing up. Me and my older brother scoured every single inch of that home when we were playing as kids. We spent hours in the basement when it was too cold or wet to go outside to play. We dug around in the closets and the old steamer trunks looking for stuff to play with. Yet I'm now finding pictures that were there the entire time that I've never seen before in my life. Old memories of parties or gatherings from long ago. Many are not the best quality due to the equipment available in those days.

Some pictures are too large to scan. Those I just take a picture of and then post the picture. I'm glad nobody thought to shitcan those. ANother funny thing is now that I've expressed an interest in getting those, some of the siblings have decided that they also want some of the pictures. I don't care who has them, as long as they don't end up in a box in a storage locker somewhere. I think they should be shared for all to view.

Anyway here's a picture of my maternal grand parents wedding party from the 1930s. Lower middle class people that took a day to celebrate a wedding.

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I get now why many people are nostalgic for things from the past. There was a lot of elegance and grace during that period. The people of walmart didn't exist during that time. Look at an old time photo of the world series played during the 1950s. All the men with hats and ties on. That was the style. No parachute pants or track suits in the crowd.

So if you have any old photos in boxes somewhere, get busy scanning them and share them with the world.
 

Kyle

ULTRA-F###ING-MAGA!
PREMO Member
My oldest family pictures make me think my ancestors flunked art class.

intro-1654003792.jpg
 

Grumpy

Well-Known Member
I was able to scoop up most of the old photos at my childhood home. So I guess that makes me the keeper of the photos. I scan them when I get a chance and post them to an album I have on facebook. A lot of the extended family has access to them. Most enjoy seeing pictures from decades ago of long ago passed relatives.
Older sister got to be keeper of the photos/papers/and other assorted goodies when our father died in 2015 (mom died 13 yrs before)..She scanned EVERYTHING and put it on Spotify..and now Spotify has changed Ts & Cs so they wouldn't be accessible for other than the user (or something like that)..Spent 5 hours going all the pics and saving the ones I wanted on my HD and backup HD last week. Have old resumes of my father and mother..Navy discharge papers from Pax in 1943..News articles on my father from 70s/80s (big dc banker). Also pics and docs of my grandparents on my mothers side going back to the 1920s. Lot of cool stuff, at least to me.
 

Sneakers

Just sneakin' around....
I have 2 brothers and we kind of each have a portion. When dad passed away last year, one brother and I split all of the photos albums and loose photos and documents that was in his apartment. Bro also took the photos on dad's computer, some 35,000 pictures.

I just bought some tables and have a scanner to start digitizing the bulk of the stuff I have now. Same kind of stuff as mentioned.... discharge/enlistment papers, weddings, ....

The entire right-hand cabinet of albums, plus the boxes of slides on the lower left all came from his place, double it for what my brother has.

Albums.jpeg
 

ArkRescue

Adopt me please !
Sadly our family branch will stop growing when we die (Mom, me, my son) as there is no one else other than cousins to pass over photos/antiques to.
 

Clem72

Well-Known Member
one of the benefits of machine learning/AI photo editing is automatic restoration of old photos. I expect in the next couple of years you will be able to upload your album of scratched up blurry and out of focus images to your google storage and they will automatically make them look like new. There's already touch-up software that does an amazing job, they're very close.
 

Sneakers

Just sneakin' around....
one of the benefits of machine learning/AI photo editing is automatic restoration of old photos. I expect in the next couple of years you will be able to upload your album of scratched up blurry and out of focus images to your google storage and they will automatically make them look like new. There's already touch-up software that does an amazing job, they're very close.
Closer than you realize. The new Google phone allows you to upload old photos and it will fix them.
 

PrchJrkr

Long Haired Country Boy
Ad Free Experience
Patron
I bought a flatbed scanner back in the 80s to hook up and teach Mommy Dearest to use on her collection. She got my maternal grandmother's collection, plus our family growing up. I never got around to it and if it's going to be accurate, I'll need her help identifying most of them. She's 88, so I'd better do something soon or they'll be lost to history.
 

Sneakers

Just sneakin' around....
I bought a flatbed scanner back in the 80s to hook up and teach Mommy Dearest to use on her collection. She got my maternal grandmother's collection, plus our family growing up. I never got around to it and if it's going to be accurate, I'll need her help identifying most of them. She's 88, so I'd better do something soon or they'll be lost to history.
My mom wrote basic info on the backs of photos. Who, when.... A lot of that is already done for us.
 

Sneakers

Just sneakin' around....
I bought a flatbed scanner back in the 80s to hook up and teach Mommy Dearest to use on her collection. She got my maternal grandmother's collection, plus our family growing up. I never got around to it and if it's going to be accurate, I'll need her help identifying most of them. She's 88, so I'd better do something soon or they'll be lost to history.
That scanner is so outdated it's not worth trying to use, if you can even connect it. Not USB.... Get something newer, and a slide scanner. You can get automated slide scanners that you stack-load and just let run to scan lots and lots in.

I figure to scan everything in, provide basic info, and let generations to come do the repair editing.
 

RoseRed

American Beauty
PREMO Member
Another suggestion: if you have an Ancestry account, you can upload the pictures and connect/share with other family members. I've seen some of my ancestors whose pictures/portraits I had never seen before. Some of them I actually have the same copies of them, but have never met these other family members. Both my Great and GreatGreat Grandfather's were professional photographers, so there is quite a collection. Some of them don't go that far back. My 12th great grandfather https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Colthurst
 

Sneakers

Just sneakin' around....
Just unboxed the scanner so I could download the drivers. From Kodak, pretty nice. It can take up to 20 5x7 photos in one load. Much of what I have is 4x6 or 5x7, so this should speed things up considerably.

Just discovered it does 8x10 as well. :yay:
 
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Sneakers

Just sneakin' around....
Just unboxed the scanner so I could download the drivers. From Kodak, pretty nice. It can take up to 20 5x7 photos in one load. Much of what I have is 4x6 or 5x7, so this should speed things up considerably.

Just discovered it does 8x10 as well. :yay:
Understatement. You can load it with up to 20 photos of all different sizes, and it will figure it out, straighten the photo, do both sides if you want. I scanned 50 photos in seconds. It even did panoramic photos (10x4) with no effort.

@Monello Thanx for the little reminder to get this going....
 

PrchJrkr

Long Haired Country Boy
Ad Free Experience
Patron
That scanner is so outdated it's not worth trying to use, if you can even connect it. Not USB.... Get something newer, and a slide scanner. You can get automated slide scanners that you stack-load and just let run to scan lots and lots in.

I figure to scan everything in, provide basic info, and let generations to come do the repair editing.
Nope, not USB. SCSI and I have an old MAC II that I was going to connect to it. I thought that would be easier for her to operate. I know its resolution was pretty high for the times, but I have an all-in-one printer with a better scanner now. That damned thing cost between $200-300 when money was worth something.

This thread got me thinking. I doubt I'll ever have time to scan them. I have too many other interests that I enjoy way more. I'll send them off to my brother in Melbourne. He can do whatever he wants to do with them. He's the one who keeps in touch with cousins who might be in some of them. I've got a grandson to home school and fish to catch.
:oldman:🐟
 
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