JonesinIndiana Posted April 13, 2016 Share Posted April 13, 2016 Hey, we are cleaning out my parent's place, since they both passed away recently. We have numerous photos of cousins, uncles, aunts that we don't want. What should we do with them? I want to send them to a cousin so he can distribute. My siblings just want to throw them out. If I send them to my cousin will they be offended, like we didn't want to keep them? Or will they appreciate having other photos they didn't have? What would you do? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Starr Posted April 13, 2016 Share Posted April 13, 2016 No one knows if their were duplicates. Just send them and say you thought they might like them. 11 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arctic Bunny Posted April 13, 2016 Share Posted April 13, 2016 Has your cousin expressed an interest? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lllll Posted April 13, 2016 Share Posted April 13, 2016 (edited) nm Edited April 20, 2016 by _ ?^.. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loowit Posted April 13, 2016 Share Posted April 13, 2016 I would send them and let them decide what to do. I would think it was a sweet gesture if I got pictures like that. I wish I knew what had happened to all of my grandmother's photo albums when she passed away, but I don't want to bug my dad by asking him. 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mamiof5 Posted April 13, 2016 Share Posted April 13, 2016 I'd send them. Sorry about your parents!!! :( 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Annie G Posted April 13, 2016 Share Posted April 13, 2016 So sorry about your parents. I'd send them- at the very least they'll have a good time looking through them once. Maybe they won't want to keep all of them, but I'd send them along with a note that the photos are theirs to do whatever they want to do with them. No pressure for them to keep them. 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
happi duck Posted April 13, 2016 Share Posted April 13, 2016 (edited) Sorry for your loss. I hope you don't throw out the photos. I agree to send them. Edited April 13, 2016 by happi duck 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TrulySusan Posted April 13, 2016 Share Posted April 13, 2016 Send them. Most people would love to get something like that. When my grandmother died, my mom sent old photos to several relatives and family friends. They all seemed very appreciative. Mom even found and sent a little baby announcement to a lady in her 70s who WAS the announced baby! She was thrilled to get it and didn't even know her mom had done announcements. 7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spryte Posted April 13, 2016 Share Posted April 13, 2016 I'm sorry about your parents, too. I would send them, if you have a cousin willing to distribute them. We don't have many old photos in our family - divorces, deaths, estrangements. Someone might appreciate them as much as we would! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ravin Posted April 13, 2016 Share Posted April 13, 2016 If someone is willing to distribute, send to them. I would probably, absent that option, scan them all, share them with family members on FB, and toss the originals. Or pay someone to scan them all for me. Or stick them in a box up in a closet intending to have them all scanned and leave the problem for your kids to deal with when YOU die... 8 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Butter Posted April 13, 2016 Share Posted April 13, 2016 My uncle had a gazillion photos when he died. It took my mom, dad, and me 4 days working 14+ hours a day to go through them. We threw most of them away. We pulled out very nice ones we thought specific people would like and distributed them to cousins. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
freesia Posted April 13, 2016 Share Posted April 13, 2016 Send them. Most people would love to get something like that. When my grandmother died, my mom sent old photos to several relatives and family friends. They all seemed very appreciative. Mom even found and sent a little baby announcement to a lady in her 70s who WAS the announced baby! She was thrilled to get it and didn't even know her mom had done announcements.This happened to me. My Mom always says that she didn't have s hospital newborn picture done if me. Then my uncle died and the nuns from the retreat center where he had lived and worked sent us his photos and there my newborn picture announcement was. She had just sent them and forgot. I was thrilled! Op- send them . 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThisIsTheDay Posted April 13, 2016 Share Posted April 13, 2016 I'm so sorry about your parents. I would encourage you to not throw them out. They are likely to be treasures to someone in your family. I've done a lot of my family's genealogy over the years, and I've been the recipient of some amazing things. Most recently, my uncle forwarded on to me all kinds of mementos that both my grandfather had, and my grandfather's sister had, including photos, some old letters, sympathy cards, handwritten listings of every address my grandfather recalled living, marriage and other vital records. They both passed away 10-15 years ago. There were a few meaningless things, but I was thrilled with the whole lot of it. Better than Christmas! 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MercyA Posted April 13, 2016 Share Posted April 13, 2016 I'm so sorry for your loss. Definitely pass the pictures along. :grouphug: 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JFSinIL Posted April 13, 2016 Share Posted April 13, 2016 (edited) If you can. write on the back of any decent shots who the person is, full name (not "Uncle Bob" but "Robert Whatshisname"). If someone could scan the best shots and post to Ancestry.com...maybe a cousin or some relative is into genealogy and would love the old shots. Please do not just throw them out. Edited April 13, 2016 by JFSinIL 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StaceyinLA Posted April 13, 2016 Share Posted April 13, 2016 We are about to do the same thing since my mom passed a few weeks ago. My plan is to divide up really old photos of mom and her siblings and share them with cousins. We will split up the ones that we (her kids/grandkids) want to keep, and toss the rest. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Murphy101 Posted April 13, 2016 Share Posted April 13, 2016 I think you should do whatever you want to do with them. If it's less stress, then go ahead and throw them away. If you are close to your cousin, then ask them if they want to have them. But I wouldn't go through the trouble of cataloging and uploading and so on for pictures you don't care about keeping. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G5052 Posted April 13, 2016 Share Posted April 13, 2016 Ask your cousin. Sometimes people don't want to be bothered, and sometimes they do! I'm going through a relative's photos now, and I'm SO happy that I got them. Of course some of them I have zero idea who it is, and they're tossed. Others are ones I've never seen before or copies of photos that unfortunately my mother threw out when my dad died. My sibling? Zero interest. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rachel Posted April 13, 2016 Share Posted April 13, 2016 When my great grandmother passed away, my great aunt gave me several pictures. I really appreciated it. I didn't really know what to do with the wedding pictures from my parents (they divorced when I was 7), but each of my siblings enjoyed looking at them. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tanaqui Posted April 13, 2016 Share Posted April 13, 2016 Ask your various family members if they want the photos. If nobody does, scan them - or at least scan any that aren't blurry or mostly somebody's thumb! - and then toss them. If you really feel bad about tossing them, you might try asking the local historical society or geneology society if anybody is interested in collecting vintage photographs. You can even try putting them up on eBay - there's a market for everything, and some people really do like to collect old photographs or use them for various purposes. (But of course, if you go that route, screen out anything potentially embarrassing to their memories.) 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HS Mom in NC Posted April 13, 2016 Share Posted April 13, 2016 You can't make a decision about keeping photos you don't want because someone else is or might be offended if you get rid of them. Someone offended about what photos someone else chooses to keep or not is a personal problem they need to deal with and not something anyone else should factor into their decision making.You can simply ask the other relative if they would you to send them the photos. If they say yes, then send it to them. If they say no then ask another relative or throw them away. Either options is fine. Photos are not people. There's nothing morally or practically wrong with throwing away photos you don't want.We had a pile of photos my grandparents were cleaning out (they kept what they wanted) about 10 years before they died. They hosted an event with extended relatives. (Some of Grandad's surviving siblings and their descendants.) I offered to have them all organized in separate groups by sibling of his generation and their direct descendants. Any photo that didn't fit neatly into that category was used to bulk up the smallest sibling pile. That meant if it had only 3 of the 10 siblings in it, it went into the smallest pile of the 3 siblings in the photo. We asked direct descendants to take what they wanted first from their direct ancestor's pile before lunch. After lunch anyone could take any of the photos that were left. Some took some for themselves and a few took some to sent them to relatives they thought would like them. We threw out what was left after the event. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tsuga Posted April 13, 2016 Share Posted April 13, 2016 Very sorry for your loss. I think you can send them. They can recycle them or do whatever they want. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lanny Posted April 14, 2016 Share Posted April 14, 2016 One of my cousins in CA has family photos. A couple of years ago, she asked me if we would like to have them. We would love to have them. Scanning and indexing them is a big project and she is busy so we don't have them yet. She is going to send some to us and some to another cousin, in TX. My wife has put a lot of photos on the walls of our house (in the living room and in the hall) and she would like to have those photos too. Others may not be interested, so my cousin narrowed it down to 2 recipients and will send the photos she thinks they will be most interested in, to each of us. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joyofsixreboot Posted April 14, 2016 Share Posted April 14, 2016 My brother and I pitched them. Life's too short to mess with them. We figured the relatives made it this far without them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lllll Posted April 14, 2016 Share Posted April 14, 2016 (edited) nm Edited April 20, 2016 by _ ?^.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JonesinIndiana Posted April 14, 2016 Author Share Posted April 14, 2016 Thanks for all the replies. These pictures are just candid shots taken when visiting them, usually at reunions. I don't need to copy or scan them, we've kept a few. I'm going to send them to my cousin and he can distribute them. Thank you for the condolences. It means a lot. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fairfarmhand Posted April 14, 2016 Share Posted April 14, 2016 Send them. I have a repository for photos of family. I don't rhink it reflects on the person who didn't want them at all. Send a note "We were cleaning out stuff and found these photos. We can't keep them but thought you'd want to take a look. You can pass them on to other people or toss them. I don't care!" 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lady Florida. Posted April 14, 2016 Share Posted April 14, 2016 My brother and I pitched them. Life's too short to mess with them. We figured the relatives made it this far without them. That's what my brother and I did. I now have two aunts trying to clear out stuff before they're gone and trying to pawn off photos on me. Most were copies we gave them in the first place, but since The Italian Aunts as we call them, are old, I just take the photos and then toss them myself. Be aware that people might say yes not to hurt your feelings, only to throw them out. If that's okay with you then go ahead and offer. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Janeway Posted April 14, 2016 Share Posted April 14, 2016 Send them to the relatives in the pictures. I would want them if they were of me or my loved ones. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Katy Posted April 14, 2016 Share Posted April 14, 2016 After my aunt died my cousin sent pictures of my (late) father that none of us had ever seen before. We were very grateful. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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