Mother's Mother's Mother's album, 1925, 1926 and 1927

[greeneyedsadie]

So I spent hours last night gingerly taking these photographs out of this album - 80 year old glue is stronger than I would ever have expected. Mom says my great grandfather probably gave my great grandmother some glue from the studio that was super tough, hahahaha

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[greeneyedsadie]

Mom says the albums take up too much storage space. We have a shit ton of albums. So I have to remove the photos from the albums, scan them, then put them in their box of their last name. Eventually we will have the electronic archive and I think I am going to eventually go for some sort of accordion file system for the actual photographs. I haven't gotten to the end game yet.

These albums I'm working on right now are from the 20s and 30s and the pictures are glued to the pages, and there are photos on both sides of each page, so I can't cut them out. MOST of them are glued only on the corners and they have been relatively easy to get off the pages, but some were glued all the way around the edges and it has been really tough to get those off, but I managed it.

So I'm dismantling the albums, and labeling each individual picture.

Basically, my end goal is to have a portable archive of all the photographs, organized by family name and each one labeled so there will be no doubt as to the people in the photographs.

See, my mother's family ends with me. And I've had no children. And everyone else is dead. So I want these photographs to be compact and in one place so when I die, my cousin's children can find these and have it all there for them, even though half of it is not their family. But maybe my little heirs will take good care of them. I plan to introduce the children (right now there's just one) of my cousin to the photo archive when they are older and can appreciate it.

I might donate my grandfather's WWII photo collection:

http://vintagephoto.livejournal.com/5567265.html
http://vintagephoto.livejournal.com/5567545.html
http://vintagephoto.livejournal.com/5567879.html
http://vintagephoto.livejournal.com/5568249.html

To some collection when I'm older and Mom and Dad have died.

I hope my family that's left to succeed me (which will most likely be one or two people) cherishes these photographs. I would hate to see all of these sold or donated to some thrift store. That would be horrible.

[greeneyedsadie]

OMG I could never dip the photos in water. I wouldn't be able to bring myself to do it.

We've been really lucky. The bulk of these photographs are all identifiable. I think out of the 2000 or so photos I've scanned so far, maybe 40 are unidentified. And for 99% of those unidentified, I know what family they're from. And on some I have first names. So when I get into the genealogy, I might be able to identify them.

We have boxes and boxes of albums. They're all in storage in my dead grandfather's garage, but we need to start renting out his house now that he's dead to help pay our mortgage on our house, so I have to get these albums out of the garage. So I have to bring them here to our house, and quickly go through them. We just don't have the space and have no option but to keep them boxed as individual photographs. But I'm going to make some sort of file system and really organize them for the future when I die. I'm on disability and I have nothing but time, so I can do this right. I will have a complete family archive that currently spans 170 years of my family. The only family line that I don't have past my great grandparents is my Polish family. And I need to contact my mother's cousin in Ohio and see if he has my great grandmother's old photographs, because my grandfather did not have them. So this has all become sort of an obsession with me.

[greeneyedsadie]

I am hoping it will come in very handy later.

I fully expect to become obsessed! :)

Thank you for enjoying my pictures.

[greeneyedsadie]

I think there's a page in the other album that's all these little landscape pictures. No family. I can try with that sheet.

[greeneyedsadie]

Grandpa died in July and we found this stash of WWII photos in his house. They were all in a box. He photographed everything. If he had seen combat he probably would have taken pictures of that.