One of my siblings was the executor of my Mom’s estate. She also cared for my Mom when my Mom had cancer till her death. She ended up with some extras and I think a few items she should have shared. She is estranged and she is the one who took all the photo albums.
I think the parents need to be clear that the executor will be paid. In one instance I know the estate is complicated and will take someone full time to settle. His parents have made it clear to other siblings that he will be compensated.
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I’m sorry. I have a very similar situation. I don’t think my sister or I will ever have access to our family photos again.
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We are very fortunate that Nephew in law decided to scan ALL my folks photos, even though he knew very few of the people in them. My SisIL suggested he just toss them but I objected. My brother bought them a great scanner and NIL scanned and scanned and scanned.
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That is so sad. Photographs are the one heirloom that everyone can have. I wouldn’t have to have the original picture. A scanned copy would be all that I would need.
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Smiling here because I have sooooo many photos from my mother (including generations before my time), no family interest. Slides too. Kindof wish there were some interest. But yea, I get how one sib hoarding photos is cruel.
One nice thing my mother did was to reorganize photos into albums for me and for sis. So I have childhood photos of my family, with lots of extras of just me. Ditto for sis. Also albums geared toward our married life/families. That was great because soon after my mother passed I was able to mail my sister’s albums to her. (Though I opted to split into separate boxes… I was still weary from the USPS box that took 31 days to go about 1000 miles.)
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Between the time change from the west coast to the east coast and how early my parents went to bed, I usually had at least four hours to kill before I was tired. I would go through the boxes of photos and scan away. Some of the photos dated back to the early 1900s and and were very special. During the day they’d help ID relatives and told stories of the “olden days.” My father passed away not long after and I’m glad to have that memory, and the photos to share with the family.
Mom’s still alive. She quickly sold their big house and moved to a one bedroom apartmet in an independent living facility, so needed to get rid of most things. Thankfully, it was all informal and orderly (no family angst). She ended up donating a lot to the hospice house that took care of Dad in his last week. My brother has financial POA and will handle her modest estate. I have medical POA. Our other siblings are fine with that arrangement.
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I have possession of all of the family photos - my mother’s family, my father’s family, my mother in law’s family, and my father in law’s family. There are some very old photos in the piles I have (some early 1900’s). The problem is that my husband and I have no idea who most of the people in these photos are. In some cases we can’t even figure out which side of the family the photo is from. I don’t even know who the bridal party members are in my parent’s wedding pictures. Our parents are either dead or not in a fit mental condition to look through them. I wont’ throw them out (how can I throw out that adorable picture of teen aged twin girls obviously taken in Italy in the early part of the century). My advice is to pencil on the back of any old pictures who they are while there is somebody alive who knows.
Related story. My sister in law was going through some old photos she had. She was able to identify an uncle in some photos and mailed these photos to a cousin (the child of this person). Instead of being thanked, the cousin said his father had been a terrible drunk and abusive to his kids and he really didn’t want any reminders of him. So you never know how people will feel about old family photos.
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I and another relative were given the task of going through a large number of boxes of photos when our almost 103 year old grandma died. We were asked because photos came from many many different people and sides of the family…and the two of us knew most of the players.
We contacted every single person and asked if they wanted any photos. More than half wanted absolutely none. Of the rest, we had to take pics and text during the LONG day of doing this…and we got more NO than yes answers.
Also, the entire group agreed that we could start by tossing all damaged photos…so any with mildew, rips, water damage, or whatever that rendered them damaged were thrown away. I’m talking many full albums of mildew infested stuff.
We created envelopes of pics to send each person who wanted them. I still have two of those envelopes here because the people who wanted them so badly have never gotten them. (One lives out of the country, and knew we had these). It’s been about 7 years…
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Yep…we had a group of photos like this. We knew which side of the family it was…and asked every single living person (some were in the pic but were very young) who the people were. Funny…we got NO agreement at all…from any two people.
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When my parents died, my sis stored the photos, after we had gone through them. We threw out of a lot of them, but there are still many remaining. I am not sure that it is important to hold on to old photos, apart from the few taken of people you loved and cherished. We all have too much STUFF in this world…too many belongings, and they can weigh us down.
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I have thousands and thousands of photos and dozens of albums that I inherited. I spent countless hours sorting and organizing them all as they were all heaped together, decades and decades intermixed. I have pictures dating back from the early 1900s all the way until 2020.
I scanned all the old photos and sent the files to my aunts so they have them too. Definitely have pictures where no one can identify anyone.
My brother and I spent days last summer sorting through them a second time. He took a big stack home with him but I still have the lion share. We threw out the blurry ones, the duplicates, and the ripped/damage.
I can’t bring myself to toss the rest. I expect they’ll sit in my basement until we move again and I’m forced to figure something else out.
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I have something like 11,000 photos on my phone.
10,000 of them are of sleeping cats 
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I’m going to start a new thread about family photos as this is getting off topic, but is something many of us struggle with.
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Ditto! 
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The Estates and Executors thread has been discussing family photos.
I’ve scanned hundreds of old family photos, and photoshopped some of the faded/damaged ones. Our local public library has a memory lab where you can book time to scan photos and digitize old videos with help from a trained volunteer at no cost.
Thoughts or experiences with photos/videos?
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My dad had a huge bin of things (2x-3x the size of a footlocker) that were important to him but that he identified we should not feel we needed to save. Yes, there were photos but there were also notes from friends and family, his parents diplomas, mementos of things he’d done, probably some things he had inherited. After a quick pass thru, we saved about 5% but were guilt free about tossing the rest. He started filling this bin at least 20 yrs before he died. We may continue that favor.
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A few years ago, we bought a device to digitize old super8 home movies from my dad. My husband kindly did all the grunt work, and we watched together and created a spreadsheet index (and meaningful file titles)
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I wrote a little about this on the other thread. I have 13 archival photo albums chronicling the last 40 years of the family life, and, lord help me, I don’t need any more family photos. The kids love those albums because they are a visual diary of where we went, who we saw, and major life events, and as such, they have value. But when I’m gone, I am fine with them all getting chucked away.
When my parents died, we inherited lots of old family photos, and went through them all, quickly. I kept a few that had meaning to me, and my sister kept a lot of them, but we also chucked tons. I feel weighted down by too much stuff. My kids are not at all interested in keeping them, and frankly, why should they? We all have so much stuff now, and so many photos and memories of the past. It’s okay to let that go and focus on the future. (Which looks a little grim these days!)
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I love the smaller and focused books you can make via Shutterfly or at Walgreens. Far better than boxes of unlabeled pictures under the bed.
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