Decluttering Old Photos and Important Documents
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- Опубліковано 15 жов 2024
- It's time to declutter old photos and important documents. Join @AskAngelaBrown for a #ClutterCornerLive as we sort through old photos. Learn the tips and tools to get photos organized the cheapest, fastest way. Together we'll discuss new rules for finding a balance between the items we keep and those we let go.
In this decluttering session, we will discuss photos, pictures, images, graphics, greeting cards, Insurance policies, property deeds, car titles, birth certificates, driver’s licenses, social security cards, and more.
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Brother MFC-J480DW - Wireless Inkjet Color Printer/Scanner - amzn.to/3x7xdA8
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Lenovo Legion Scanning Computer (with all the bells and whistles) - amzn.to/3L7OzCz
Plastic Shoebox with air-tight lids to store photos until scanned - amzn.to/3KYFYC6
Clear plastic double-sided photo albums - amzn.to/3RzKFVE
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OLD PHOTOS
Do you have all your printed photos in one place?
Do you have all your digital photos in one place?
Do you have a system that you religiously follow for managing your digital or printed photos?
In how many places do you keep photos?
Do you have a labeling system for your photos?
In what type of storage container do you keep your photos?
Plastic? Cardboard? Airtight? Climate Controlled?
How often do you go through your photos?
PAPER | PRINTED PHOTOS
Do you toss or keep photos that didn’t turn out? (Maybe you took a couple of copies and only one looks great but you keep those with half smiles or half-closed eyes.)
Do you save thank you and greeting cards family members have sent you?
Do you plan on digitizing old paper or printed photos at some point?
Have you started the digitizing process for paper or printed photos yet?
Do you have a scanner for photos?
Would you feel safe using a service like Fiverr to ship your photos and entrust them in the hands of a stranger?
How much would you be willing to pay someone to digitize your photos for you?
Do you have a waterproof place for your photos?
Do you have a fireproof place for your photos?
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NOTE: The clutter shows from this channel have been moved over to youtube.com/@hoardingworld - come join us there where we can focus on finding a balance with our stuff.
Here's another category of photos to toss...Christmas cards! Every year as the Christmas cards come in the mail, I scan them and put them in an album on iCloud. Then using my AppleTV, I use the screen saver function and select the Christmas Card album to display. It's a fantastic way to enjoy your Christmas cards and gets you into the holiday spirit.
I love this idea! Thanks for sharing it here. 👍
That's a great idea!
Thank you, Angela. This was very helpful. I have boxes of photos and am the designated family genealogist. I love old photographs and will always keep them. I hope to start using your recommended system of scanning and saving digital copies. It physically pains me to throw away photos, but I’m getting better 😊.
You're welcome! It's wonderful that you're preserving your family's history❤
You're welcome! I'm glad you found it helpful. Best of luck with preserving your family's history! 😊
I'm overwhelmed with my photos. I want to scan but don't know how. I'm so grateful for this video
I’m so glad you liked the video. If you are having technical trouble with your scanner find a UA-cam video on that particular scanner model for help. Thanks again for watching!
It's not that difficult. Choose a scanner model which covers the sizes of negatives, slides & photos you have & connect it to your computer with a USB connection. The provided instructions are usually pretty good, otherwise look for You-Tube videos on how to scan.
I have been scanning my family photos since 2004 and I keep them on an external drive. We look at them on our Apple TV. Before 2004 I made an album per year. And once in awhile when everyone comes over, I will randomly pick a few old fashioned albums and put on the coffee table. It’s Fun to watch my adult children look through “old fashioned “ album
Jean, What a great idea to leave the photo albums out for relatives to look at when they come to visit. 😊
Great video! I am doing this right now. I am 28 and have been going through our photos and my grandparents photos. My grandparents were born in the 20's and grew up during the great depression and they saved everything!!! I mean everything. My grandmother had one large box of photos, 6 old black paper albums from the the 10's and 40's, over 50 albums (She actually had more albums but most of them had never been used and some only had a few pictures in them. There were also drawers full of pictures. I have sorted all for my Aunts, Uncles, Dad, and cousins but am still left with the older family pictures. I have decided to keep the older pictures since I like old photos and also enjoy my family history. There are more duplicates from the 40's and 50's so I am going to sort through all of those and give those away to my cousins and Aunts. I have gotten rid of all of the blurry bad pictures unless it was the only picture I had of a family member. It is still a work in progress but I am finally getting there.
This is great! Sounds like you arlready go the ball rolling. You got this!! Kudos to you...keep it up!
@@AskAngelaBrown I am keeping as many as I can. Especially all of the ones before the 40's. I have all of my grandfather's mother's pictures and she had a lot. There were even some duplicates of those!!! And they date from the 1800's to the 30's.
@@AskAngelaBrown Can you help me with some tips on what photos to toss? I have tried to keep pretty much the ones of my grandparents, great grandparents unless it is a really bad blurry picture. I do have quite a lot of older photos that date from the 30's on back to the late 1800's. I really don't want to toss those as they are probably the only copies I have. I do have all of my grandparents negatives so I will have to go through those sometime. Thanks for any help you can give me.
I'm a professional photo organizer and I always tell my clients to go through their photos first and toss all the useless ones! Duplicates, blurry, similar, etc. That will save you a LOT of time and money in the digitization process. Definitely create 3 backups: one on an external hard drive, one in the cloud, and one hard drive saved off the property. These should be backups, not in your daily use library like the one on your phone. Update annually and save your annual photos into your backup drives. Think of it like a time capsule but it's your photo capsule exclusively for memories. For you Amazon Prime members, Amazon offers free unlimited, full-resolution, photo storage. Add the app to your phone and it will copy all the images in your phone library and upload them to their servers. Good luck to you all and remember to just get rid of as much as you can!
I love these tips! I appreciate you taking the time to reach out and sharing them with us. 😊
Nothing is "Free"
Another tip for everyone- don't skimp on your scanner! I initially bought a model (Epson Perfection V330) which only went up to 35mm film, but then I remembered I had some medium format (60mm) 120 negatives! So I had to buy another scanner (Epson Perfection V550) which would handle this larger film format! I sold the smaller scanner, as it was still in excellent condition.
Thank you for sharing your experience with us! 🙂
When I was first scanning my photos many years ago, I didn't realize till I'd done a ton of them that I'd set the scanner at a pretty low resolution. Just a tip for some of you who might do the same: maybe have someone knowledgeable get you started so you end up with great copies.
Thanks for the tip!
Lol, instead of throwing away your old photos, give them to people! What a good idea!
😉😊
Ahhh, family photos, that's something I have a lot of experience with! After my dad passed away, I was faced with the task of organising tens of thousands of family photos, slides, & negatives in multiple formats. I bought myself an Epson photo scanner, and started scanning everything into my computer, and at the same time sorting the pictures into film strip order. Also, assigning a date and theme to each batch. The whole thing took about 3 solid months, but I got there... Tips for photo sorting: Put photos in envelopes, and negative film strips into plastic pocket sheets to keep the dust off. If you have various film cuttings to group together, you can match them to other film strips by brand, frame number, & the shape of the cut. I kept slides in special boxes. Once the photos are scanned, you can play about with them in Photoshop or similar, to get them looking really good. I keep all the photos, negatives, slides & 8mm movies in two plastic crates. Also, don't forget to make backup copies of the files!
PS- there were a few photos of people I didn't recognise, and I had to contact aunts & other relatives to find out who they were. Since I wanted to find out how all these people were related, I started to put together an online family tree, which included thumbnails of some of the photos I'd just sorted. The sad thing is that no-one apart from me seems to be interested in my family tree & the discoveries I've made..
Congrats on completing that huge project and thank you for sharing these great tips! 📷😎
@@AskAngelaBrown Thanks! As I say, it makes me sad that I discovered all these new people, sometimes by e-mailing people in other countries, but noone is interested!!. For example, I e-mailed the town hall of a small Australian town, and they informed me that my Great-Grandfather had been mayor of that town at the beginning of the 20th century! They even sent me a photo of him!
@victor9501
No one may be interested at this present time.
There will come a time when someone will. It might be a nephew or niece down the line from you.
You can always have a small book printed up and give to various relatives. Also be sure to always donate one to the library genealogy room. Maybe even a county or two away from yours.
I found a library that I want to do this with. They have a whole section with FYI on New England area, down here in Georgia. [Maternal side is from MA]
@@ajalicea1091 I hope so.
Wow! Thank you. This was very, very helpful for my present and overwhelming task 🌟
Barb, Keep me posted on how you are doing with the task. I’m routing for you! 👏
Crimeny I still have all my grandmothers photos and lots of them are the cardboard kind from the late 1800's. I have alot of those in frames displayed cuz they are KEWL! in my opinion.
I have tubs and totes of old photos from my life, my moms life, and my grandma's life. but its okay! I can sort thru the 'bad' photos that came out terrible. lots of negatives also!
That sounds like a fun project! Checking out the really old photos can be fascinating. 👍
@@AskAngelaBrown Gma was smart, she named the relatives on the back. Good for me cuz I wouldnt know. To save the pics on hard drive is brilliant, what if theres a fire? You never know.
@@lambchop206 If you have the choice of scanning the negative or the photo, always go for the negative as you get a better quality image.
I - memories was great!
Thank you for watching and joining the conversation!!
Yup, I am 70. Sure I remember!
👍
We just did this at our house and got rid of about 6 huge bags of paper. Important documents and photos were scanned, so nothing is actually gone, just not cluttering the house :)
That's great!! Thanks for watching and for taking the time to comment.
Now that I am in my 70s, I need to have/keep my photo albums. Since the days of interacting with friends, co-workers, family, etc., are long gone, I have 'visual' memories to look at whenever I want to. My 1st born daughter died unexpectedly at age 47. I have her pics from birth thru her last living years which I treasure & share with my 2 adult grandchildren who take pics of my pics with their cameras & save to their external sources. I have uploaded several pics on FB but rarely look at them anymore. I've decided to let my adult grandchildren deal with my picture albums after I die. After my mother's death, 5 years ago, I set up my folding table, set up 5 large manilla envelopes for myself & 4 siblings and began sorting thru many decades of mom's collected and stored pictures. My siblings have their own envelope of pics to do with as they please. I am so glad that I took pics, decades ago, because after my daughter's death, her 2 adult children didn't have pics of their lives together & now they do. Both of them are 1st time parents & their children will never have to wonder about their growing years because every other moment is just a snap shot away to be saved, digitally, until the end of time. Also, I need to visually see my pics because I can still vividly recall names, timeframes, events, etc., since I can no longer interact with so many who have passed on. I remember my mom saying that after she's gone, 'her kids can deal with it'...that ended up being me & now I'll be doing the same thing to my adult grandchildren. For me, now much older and not getting out much or seeing others anymore, this is what is left of my life & living years and I will enjoy my albums until my time ends.
Thank you for sharing this!❤
Angela, you can always donate Old photos that you don't know who are in it to "Dead Fred". They will do their best to find out who they were and pass it on to there their family.
It's just another site where Genealogist search.
I've never heard of them. That's nice! Thanks for sharing this information.
@@AskAngelaBrown
My hobby is genealogy. It is something I learned from a class.
I seem to have become the only person in my family interested in genealogy and archiving the old photos. I have a card table stacked both under and on top of the items to archive. Thanks for all the ideas. I hope that facial recognition will help with a couple of special family ones.
I intend to upload to shared folders in the cloud and share access with close and distant relatives that way. And upload known pictures to my preferred genealogy platform which is free access for all.
My GGgrandmother had multiple little autograph albums which captured their memories way back before 1880 and I hope to get around to them as well. Those contain many timely moral and literary quotes of their times and are beautifully scripted.
That’s wonderful! I hope once you start uploading photos some more family members will become interested in helping you. I wish you the best!
I'm the same, it was sorting out & scanning all my old family photos which sparked my interest in genialogy through trying to find out who everyone in the photos was. I've made a quite extensive online family tree, and included photos from all the ones I scanned. Like you, I'm frustrated that no-one else in my family is interested though! 😞
You had me practically crying with laughter at your video. Mostly because I relate big time.
Glad to know that the video was enjoyable to you...thanks!
@@AskAngelaBrown Now that I look back at this comment, it sounds really rude. I find your style to be clever, didn't actually mean I laugh at the video.
“….she left the earth a cleaner place…”. LOL!!
LOL. My editor put that in. It cracked me up. I think she used one of those face apps that adds 10 years to your life - but she left me in the same blue shirt. 😂😂😂
Gave to my daughter!!! Loved taking picture s
Thanks so much for watching the show!
Awesome info!
Glad you liked it!
I have a stack of bad/mad photos and everytime I pay a bill by mail I include one of these, as an envelope stiffener. Be sure to write -Do Not Return- on the back, because once one, of the payees did return the photo.
Rivka, Oh wow, I would like to see what the billing departments are doing with the photos you’ve sent! Thanks so much for sharing this. 😊
I really enjoy looking at old photos of my ancestors, so you might want to consider that some of the people that are not interested in photos today might be interested when they are 70! lol
Thank you for sharing your perspective
This is totally true. My 87 year old dad has absolutely no interest in old family photos and would have gotten rid of all of the pictures of my grandparents had I not rescued them. Now we can at least leave digital copies for future generations, but I fear a lot of relevant family history has been lost due to an uninterested generation here or there.
How did you know my next decluttering project? :)
Hah! I think this project is on the back burner for a lot of people. There’s no time like the present. 👍
Genealogists are the probably world's worst at saving documents and photos.
Me included since that is my hobby.
Would you happen to be able to recommend a good portable scanner? So when I travel, I can just scan stuff without having to figure out how to make copies. Because it can become quite costly at certain libraries. Courthouses, et cetera.
I don't have a portable scanner, but here are my suggestions. The "Fujitsu ScanSnap iX100" or "Epson WorkForce ES-50" would be great options for genealogists on the go. They allow you to conveniently scan documents and photos without the need for making costly physical copies. Happy scanning and safe travels! 📷✈️
Hi Angela. I was excited when I saw the title of this video. I’ve been saying to myself I’m going to organize my photos when I retire. I’ve been retired for 7 years and still nothing. It is an area I’m totally illiterate in and have no interest in learning how to bring it up to date. You lost me from the beginning because I don’t have those tools or knowledge to use them. I only have an iPhone and I don’t even know what to do with the photos there. I’ve asked my children to help even to get them in some frames. Most are just sitting in bags under my bed. It will be progress if I get an organizer to sort them and out them in. You are extremely organized in many areas. I am when it comes to cleaning, but not this. And I have no interest in learning in this area. I’ll ask my daughter in law if she can help me somehow. She’s a media specialist and knows much about this stuff. I look so forward to your videos. You are brilliant. Thank you very much. ❤️
Thank you so much for watching and being part of the conversation! 🤗
What do you do with slides? I have shoeboxes full of my Dad"s slides. I like to do scrapbooking and put my favorite photos and cards in my scrapbooks. You can also write more information on the pages than you can put on the back of a photo. I also like to text photos to friends and they can decide if they want to save them.
Slides can be scanned into digital images. Thanks for sharing these tips, Marcia. 👍
@@AskAngelaBrown Might be worth mentioning that for slides & negatives, you definitely need a photo-scanner in which the light shines through the film to the sensor (transmitted light)! Printed photos & documents can be illuminated from below & the sensor picks up reflected light.
I don't like the way it is today ,like that we can see them at moment!!❗but get my pic!!On phone then I never get them out !!👍🤗😉
I see what you’re saying, no anticipation as you open the envelope of photos. But you also don’t have to pay for terrible photos, you can just delete them. 😊
I scan my photos and back them up in more than one location. They are all categorized, but I need to discard the un-valuable ones....
Great idea to have a backup plan. 👍
7:36 What about having an older brother who repeatedly called me the “R” word (“retard”), and my mother, not my Dad, finally reacted after I cried and would run to my bedroom many times. She told my brother that he would have to pay her a quarter each time he called me that. I just wanted it to stop period. To this day, my brother is still a jerk and is obnoxious, but unfortunately he is the oldest and my father favors him because he followed in my father’s footsteps by going into the family business of farming and has had lots of advantages as a result. He also had two boys (grandsons) who also went into farming even though they didn’t have much a choice in it. They knew nothing else really. In fact, the oldest son/nephew is going to get my parent’s (family) home as they are going to move to a house in a nearby small town although it’s not my hometown where I went to school. It is in the town that my brother and his wife wish to some day live when they retire, so I’m sure that will be interesting when my parents pass. When I asked if my nephew will buy the house and the only response I got was “It’s complicated.” It has been difficult dealing with my patriarchal based family. I’m the only girl in the family. Any advice? As an adult, I have struggled with major depression and anxiety.
I'm so sorry to hear about your struggles. I'm sending you a big virtual hug 🤗 and saying a prayer for you and your family.🙏🏼
As I was reading your note I wondered if you knew about our support group over at Hoarding World?
You don't have to be a hoarder to participate, there are actually lots of counselors and therapists in the group helping all of us as we change our relationship with stuff.
Come over and join us.
facebook.com/groups/hoardingworld
You will meet some of the coolest people in the world there and I'm proud to call them friends. They will be thrilled to meet you.
Again, thanks for reaching out and for including me in this part of your journey. 🤗 🤗 🤗
See you on the inside.
----------------------------
PS. Have you heard of 211.org? It's a program by the United Way that has confidential services that can help with the cleaning and the bills and whatever else they may be able to provide. They are a great resource and the call is free. Feel free to call them, and let them know that Angela Brown from the Ask a House Cleaner UA-cam show sent you. They will give you the VIP treatment. Keep me posted and let me know how it goes. I'm saying a prayer for you and rooting for you.
I had all my IPAD pictures downloaded to a CD with the help of a drug store. I was worried my IPAD would crash and I would lose them. I had tons of digital photos on it.
That’s a great idea! Thanks for watching the show and leaving a comment.
My dad took pictures from his plane and I hsd no idea where he was! Oh, bad pix aplenty. He always wanted us smiling into direct sunlight. Aaaaagh!!
I appreciate you taking the time to leave a comment. Good luck with going through the photos. 👍
Haha! Every first day of school picture had us ugly squinting into the sun! 🙄
I agree about not taking pictures of people in direct sunlight! Not only does it make them squint, but it produces very harsh shadows & very contrasty photos. Shady sunlight is better IMO.
hard drives fail, get lost. daughter scanned in all of my books, put it on my pc. to look at them i have to be sitting in a chair in front of pc. i would rather look at books. the books are in a bin so that i can access them, and daughter can toss them out when the time comes.
Thanks so much for sharing your thoughts on this topic, I value your opinion. 👍
Hahaha I keep everything because it cost good money! Such a horrible habit.,
Many people have this habit and have a hard time breaking it.
Looks a bit like a VHS case.
Thanks for sharing your input and for watching the video!
Hola I recommend to change your picture because look no too entusiastic. Your picture for cleaning look determinate but order than you are
LOL. Thanks for the tip! I should hire you to be my fashion and "appearance" coach. I need all the help I can get. 😍
I have never understood why people keep photos. Can’t they remember what happened? For me, it’s all in my mind. I don’t save pictures at all.
It's perfectly okay to have different perspectives on keeping photos. While some people cherish photographs as a way to preserve memories, others, like you, prefer to rely on their minds to recall past experiences. Memories are indeed a powerful way to hold onto special moments. The decision to keep or not keep photos is entirely personal and depends on individual preferences. If memories alone fulfill your need for nostalgia, that's wonderful! Each approach is valid, and the most important thing is finding what works best for you. Thank you for sharing your thoughts, and remember, whatever brings you joy and happiness is what truly matters! 😊
1) Photos can be shared with others. Memories can’t. 2) My Mom is older now with some dementia. Going through her old photo albums from my childhood, and her childhood, helps jog her memory and she can tell me some of her stories, and help her caregivers get to know her and have things to talk about. When her family and friends can’t be with her, it can help her feel a bit less lonely. (She’s too old for digital, though, and can’t access digital photos at all.)