How safe is your photo legacy?

What is the fascination with genealogy? There are several popular programs on tv based around finding out where we come from and who our ancestors were. It's fun to find out about the celebrities featured in the shows but if you can draw any conclusion from them, it's that celebrities are descended from ordinary people, just like the rest of us. There are the heroes and the crooks, the immigrants and the  dreamers, the slaves and the slave-owners. Since a good number of Americans came from somewhere else in search of a better life, the trail can get complicated. How much do you know about your ancestry?

If there is a  counterpoint to genealogy, it might be antiques. Who hasn't seen Antique Road Show, where people bring their family heirlooms to be examined by the experts in the hope that they are valuable. Often, when told that great-grandma's ugly porcelain vase is worth thousands, the owner will say, "Well, I couldn't sell it, it's been in the family for years!" If the item should turn out to be worthless, the answer is much the same because it has sentimental value. 

Old photographs are a link between these two disciplines. We take so many photos today that we forget what a special event a visit to the photography studio was in our grandparents' day. Looking at faded photographs of those who went before us, gives us a sense of who we are and we want to find out more about these people. Pictures like the wedding scene above hold a fascination because it is so different from the current day. The dress, the stiff pose, the rather terrified-looking bride and the formidable older women behind her. This is the wedding of my paternal grandparents. I only knew my grandmother as a crabby old lady who lived with us when I was a child. Here she is very young and beautiful, with her life before her. As far as I know this is the only photo of their wedding whereas today there would be hundreds. I wish I knew who all the other people in the picture were!

Old photographs may not be 'valuable', but they are part of our legacy. How will we preserve them for the next generations?  I restore old photos as part of my business and I store my personal treasures with Forever. It is so sad to see boxes of photographs sent to the dump because no one wants to store them or knows the history behind them. Forever permanent cloud storage is one way to keep the memories safe while cutting through the clutter! You can tag and cross tag your pictures and add stories to them so that your children and grandchildren will know who they come from.

I just booked a solo trip to England to visit my sister. I hope to have lots of time to talk and catch up, but also, maybe, write down some family stories so that I can share them with my family here in the USA. Keeping other people's memories alive is a passion of mine, and I want to be sure of my own photo legacy too!