ladypat - edit your post & select the photo to delete. As for memories, I have a table with a gallery of family photos that includes several of my parents at different stages of their lives - before me. It also includes all the dogs & one horse in my life. This gallery is in our upstairs TV room where I see them often.

My image and other memories are entirely mental. I take them with me everywhere I go and I can look at them any time.

When the second of my parents died, my niece cleaned out their place and presented me with a box of family photos. I accepted them with thanks and appreciation for her work and drove home with the box in the car. I quickly glanced through the contents while putting it all into the trash bin the next day.

I’ve kept most of my old photos. I don’t have many on display.

I have the Bell and Howell projector and slides that belonged to my dad. My sisters and I once got together and had ”movie night”. We had a running commentary of what my mom and dad would have said when we used to view them as kids. It was hilarious.

I’ll occasionally look through old photo albums. And my parent’s photo albums.

My daughter can do what she wants with them when I am gone.

eta Lovely photos, Ladypat

I have kept very few paper family photos — a couple of my parents, a few from vacations.

I ended up with literally thousands of photos of strangers when my parents died - mostly from what was purported to be my mother’s blood-kin (turns out that was a lie). Nobody left alive to tell me who those people were, nobody else to give them to: my mom was an only, her mom’s siblings had no kids.

My husband and I spent two evenings sorting through the photos and pitched all but about 20. When I die, I assume my daughter will throw those away. she is childless by choice, so my family stops with her.

A few years before my dad died - at 90 - my mom asked me to make a DVD photo array of his life. Turned out she wanted it for his after funeral reception. Once I got over the thought that my mom was doing advance planning for his funeral, I embarked upon the project. I went through so many albums & created the stories of his life - childhood - growing up years / military war service / work years / young fatherhood years / working career years. I turned all the photos over to a person in their local town who made these DVD’s for a pretty low price. She set it to music & created a lovely keepsake. So of course, after my dad’s DVD was made - which he loved BTW - I knew I had to do the same for my mom. Each of my siblings has a copy of each & it’s been a nice keepsake. We played my mom’s at her 90th birthday party & she loved that. We did too since many pictures of all of us as kids were included in hers & in my dad’s too. Turns out the grandkids of our parents have loved these DVDs too. It turned out to be a great way to save & share family history & not take up too much space.

After doing these two projects I embarked on another one. My dad was a camera buff & took so many movies & pics printed on slides. I had this film converted to DVDs too & had copies made for siblings. Over the years these DVDs have been viewed at many family gatherings. My younger sister has been vegetarian for many years - we all get a kick out of a movie my dad took of her 8th year birthday party. She is seen clearly enjoying the Colonel Sanders chicken leg she’s chowing down on! Hilarious family moment for the rest of us.

Elmer - That’s so interesting. I can visualize my father like he’s right here in the room with me, but coming across a picture will trigger a completely different level of memories. Pictures from earlier years, different memories.

Like Mark said we’re all wired differently, and we have different degrees of sentimentality. I find your comments consistent with your disinterest in ancestry. I’d imagine you’re in a small minority with this level of disinterest.

That’s not a critism in any way, but it’s worth considering when you’re in conversations like this. You appear more interested in what can be deemed useful to you here and now. You can support that approach rationally - and it’s interesting to read - but there’s no reason to “debate” it with others who feel differently.

Anyway, back to ladypat’s question. We don’t display many family pictures prominently. We used to have a collage on one wall in the family room, but felt that it grew stale. We replaced all that with a large format piece, and the room felt a lot less cluttered.

Another thing, if I’m being open and honest, I can be prone to depression. Seeing old pictures can trigger a sadness for the loss of times gone as much or more than happy memories. I prefer to have a little more control of that, looking at them when I’m in the right headspace and putting them away when it starts to become too much.

food, I didn't intend my comment to seed a debate. It would be pointless, it's a function of personal thoughts and sentiments. As you cite about MarkT and yourself, we're all wired differently.

I'm not sure your "here and now" comment about me is on firm ground though.

Elmer I wasn’t suggesting you’re seeding debate here. It just immediately made me think of comments you’ve made in conversations about ancestry. Especially one something to the effect of not being interested in your ancestry beyond how your parents‘ experiences directly impacted your life. I’m obviously not quoting. Anyway I’m also not looking to debate or derail, I just genuinely thought your comment was interesting and could help explain why you see things like this differently from many/most.

We had all the VHS tapes of the kids and family transferred to thumb drives by that Legacybox company that advertises. They did an incredible job. I had three made, one for us and one each for the girls. I know that they do photos too, and someday I will have to go through the "vault" and decide what to do with everything. The problem is that I cry when I see all the people who aren't with me anymore.

I have a picture of my paternal grandparents, taken in 1911, when they came to America. It still had the stamp of the photographer from East 110th St. in NYC on the back. I took it in and had copies made for each of my cousins, and they were overwhelmed. It was funny, because the person at the camera store asked if I wanted them to "clean up" the picture, and she was quite surprised that I said "no". I have the same kind of picture of my mother's family, from when they arrived. It's the only picture that exists of my grandfather. He died in a terrible work accident shortly afterwards. These two pictures have a place of honor on our piano.

I have about a dozen or so photos of family in frames, some really old, some not-so-old, and I have a couple hundred in albums. I also have many digitized and saved on my computer. I rarely look at the albums, and have recently started to wean those down, maybe 20 or 25 a year. I have no children, nieces, or nephews, so I've decided that if I don't have the photos displayed, and look at them regularly, then I will get rid of them.

I'm looking for a non-internet digital photo frame to display many of the ones I have on my computer, so if anyone has a suggestion of one, I'd appreciate it.

Many digital photo frames support input from SD cards so no WiFi is used or required.

We're a photo-heavy family. My dad was an army photographer, so he was always taking pix and had multiple cameras, and we all got in on it at a young age with our own little cameras, and his Polaroid Land camera - the old-school B&W kind that you peeled apart and wiped with a chemical wand. My dad took many home movies too and we'd often have family movie and slideshow nights.

Along with the framed ones, there are boxes and boxes of family photos and albums going way back, and my middle sister and I both took photography classes in college.

This thread reminded me of a point I’d decided long ago. That is that no one I don’t know will be in a position to ’use’ my photos. I used to like to cruise through antique stores (junque stores). It always made me sad to see the piles of vintage photos & even much newer photos available for purchase in these stores. I puzzled over what kind of person dumps their old family photos in a place for public viewing and purchase and also what kind of person buys those photos. I determined none of my old photos would be treated this way - I’d rather burn them. A few years ago I went though all of my photo collection to sort out those to keep & those to do something else with. I returned extended family photos to someone in those families with a note saying they might enjoy a trip down memory lane & might want to share some of them within their families or toss. I did the same with photos of friends. I did destroy bags of photos. Lots of ”who are these people photos?” in the destroy pile. Now I have only my older family photos that are displayed in frames. True confessions time - I have a large shoe box full of photos of my beloved dogs I’ve had in my adult life. I can’t part with them yet.

I have over 14,000 photos on my phone. Very few are of family members. My mom was an avid photographer and for a long time I had the Brownie camera she used as a teen. It's probably in a box around here somewhere. She was born in 1910. I have some neat black and whites that she took of my dad when they dated and got engaged. He was very dapper, even back then. I am the 5th of 6 children, spread out over 22 years. After my dad passed and my mom came to live with me, she brought her large department store box full of pictures from all different times of life. We enjoyed going through them over the two years she was with me. When she moved in it was with their bedroom set (married in 1930) including a chest of drawers and a secretary. After she passed, I filled the secretary with pictures of my family. I have a picture of my parents, brothers and sisters as adults. I think it is the only picture of all of us together. I never knew my grandparents. They passed before I was born. But I have their pictures and I treasure those too.

A funny story. I helped take care of an elderly neighbor. She was a friend. One day we were sitting in her house and she was telling me about a vacation she took once to Acapulco. I told her I went to Acapulco once too with a church group. Turns out she was on that same trip. We had a great laugh over that. She was not from my church but went with a friend who was. She was 18 years older than me, went to the same high school as my sister! Small world.

As for the box of pictures, it gets used these days when a family member passes and the family wants to do a picture board. I'm pretty sure when I pass, no one will want these pictures and will throw them away. There doesn't seem to be the close connection to family members any more.

" I'm pretty sure when I pass, no one will want these pictures and will throw them away. There doesn't seem to be the close connection to family members any more. "

This suggests to me that the "service" your efforts provide may not be as important to or valued as much by others as it is by you. Keeping that in mind, what could happen at a future date shouldn't upset you.

My favorite old photo is one of my dad with a dog. He loved dogs and instilled that in all of us. I passed it down to my daughters as well.

If I were going to display photos, I'd pick a hallway and used picture ledges to keep the time needed to tend to the display to a minimum.

When I lived in Baltimore, I had a drum table that belonged to my parents. They gave it to me for my house as they weren't using it anymore. Anyway, I put a lacey cloth on it and then displayed all my family photos. I pretended it was a grand piano and it was nice seeing everyone on a daily basis. Once I moved back home, my current house isn't big enough for that table but now I see the people in the pictures any time I want!

One of my favorites. A couple of 80’s chicks. Me on the right. This is precious to me. I can cry when looking at it. Good times. Those were the days, my friend.

The only photos on display at my house are on an old table in the back bedroom. At the landing to the second floor, there is a small table that has a few photos of long-dead relatives. I have three photo albums, one of my son and one of my daughter's early life. I also have my mother's album and her sister, my aunt, who had no children. There is a box of photos my parents took when they spent a month every year in Florida. I will give the kids their albums and they can throw away the rest. Sadly, they don't know who many in the photos are.