Our Family History, Photos, and Heirlooms

Photo by Mick Haupt on Unsplash

I’ve been busy working on that family albums and have almost completed my update of information and photos. One of the positives of this time-consuming but rewarding effort is that I identified information that I would like to add to my collateral relative information. Also tied to this was the importance of organization and identifying family photos and artifacts. I can tell I have more work ahead. Let’s look at ideas for tackling these kinds of projects.

A big inspiration for today’s blog is FamilyTree Magazine, September/October 2024 issue. They have great articles related to the how and whys of organizing and storing your family heirlooms, digitizing records, and photos as well as what to do with inherited family materials. If you get a chance, pick up this issue as it is chockful of valuable information.
One of the key warnings that I have taken to heart is to not trade disorganized paper files for disorganized digital files. We all start out with good intentions when we organize our digital family history files. You might have a great naming convention and everything in its place. The challenge is to keep it that way. After scanning one hundred photos and documents, do you make it a point to label and file these digital items? Uh…me either. I’ve usually done a marathon scanning and then life takes over again. I see the folder “scans to be labeled” and skip over them to research some exciting new find. I am resolved to do better. I have started to do this if I don’t have time to label each item right away: I mass label the items using the family name and the date scanned. At least this way I can put that folder in the correct family file until I do spend time labeling. It’s not perfect but it is better than having five hundred images floating in your files with the obscure name of Image 1, Image 2, etc.
I also liked the idea of spending some time to identify what has to be scanned, what is most important, or would be expensive to replace? Examples of items you could probably download to get a crisp digital copy would be census records but a letter from great grandpa is priceless and should be a priority to scan.
Here are a few more articles related to organizing your family photos and heirlooms:
6 Steps to Organize, Back Up and Store Your Old Family Records, Photos and Heirlooms (familyhistorydaily.com)
15 Expert Tips for Preserving All Your Family Heirlooms (familytreemagazine.com)
Letting Go of Other People's Stuff: How to Declutter Family Heirlooms | Organize & Declutter (unclutteredsimplicity.com)
Organize Your Family Archive (archives.com)
I hope these articles and ideas inspired you to organize your family research and heirlooms. It will help you when you’re writing your family stories if you can find information quickly and easily. I keep reminding myself that it is a process, not a destination. If we consistently do something to organize our digital files each week, we will be further ahead than doing nothing. Or waiting for some big digitizing event. Happy planning, organizing, and digitizing!