From Dusty Attics to Digital Archives: A Guide to Saving Your Memories
Saving Your Memories
Do you have to dig through old boxes in the attic for your cherished family memories? Do you want to preserve your precious photos, home movies, slides, and memorabilia for future generations? In a time when we are constantly dealing with natural disasters like tornados, floods, and fires we want to make sure your memories are preserved. Here are expert tips on keeping your old memories safe and creating a treasure trove of nostalgia you can enjoy and share with your loved ones.
Gather
The first step in saving your memories is to gather all your photos, slides, negatives, reels (not the Instagram ones), VHS tapes, and memorabilia in one place. It’s really important to have an understanding of everything you have. If tomorrow, you had one hour to get everything out of your home and into your vehicle, it wouldn’t be helpful to know it’s all in one place.
Sort
At this point, I don’t want you to go down memory lane! I want you to put similar items together! When I take in a client project, this is the first thing I do and take an inventory. Often, I can consolidate everything from three big tubes to two just by using space more wisely.
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Photos
- Albums – leave them in there for now, just get them all in one place
- Boxes – if your photos are thrown in boxes, they will take up far less room if they are stacked on their side. You may want to run to Michaels or Hobby Lobby for some inexpensive photo boxes.
- Envelopes – If photos are in the original envelopes from processing, they may contain important information about the dates they were taken. If they are still in the cardboard envelopes, with the smaller paper envelopes, make a note of any information on the outer envelope and let that go. (write it on the smaller envelope or cut out that part and stick it in the smaller envelope). If they have negatives, keep them all together for now. If no negatives, you may want to put them directly in a box with any information you may have gathered.
- Frames – if the frames are no longer on the wall, take the photos out and let the frames go
- Sizes – If photos are 5×7 or larger they are likely more important photos and they will not fit in a standard photo box. You may want to keep a larger box (I like to use a hanging file box when sorting) for these items.
- Writing – in case something comes up during this process and you want to make a note on a photo, please do not use a regular pen. Use a photo-safe archival pencil, like these from Stabilio*.
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Negatives
- If they are with the photos, keep them together for now
- If not, start a box of just negatives
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Slides
- If they are in carousels, keep them together for now or you can purchase these types of boxes for long-term storage*.
- If they are in smaller boxes, leave these as they often may contain more information
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VHS tapes (and similar)
- Tapes are at the highest risk of deteriorating
- Do you have any way to look at these? If you still have the camera you used to record tapes smaller than VHS, you may want to keep that, so you can take a look and see if there is anything worth saving on the tapes
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Film reels
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Audiotapes
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Memorabilia
- Sort our paper from items like buttons, medals, ribbons, etc
- This section may also include kid art and school papers. (Some of these things may just go directly into the trash.)
Storage
Ideally, you are going to organize and digitize everything but to start, here are a few key things to remember!
- Memories items should be stored where you live. If you wouldn’t sleep there, it’s probably not the best place for saving your memories either. Places to AVOID keeping your photos and other items.
- garage
- attic
- basement (if unfinished and no climate controls)
- storage shed or space (unless climate-controlled)
- The place you store these items in your home may also be specific to where you live in the world.
- Tornado area – may be best to keep in a high and dry area of your basement
- Flooding area – on the top level of your home and as high off the ground as possible
- Fire area – easy to get to and easy to move
- If items are not on display (ex. Boxes or albums on a shelf) I highly recommend keeping them in plastic totes instead of cardboard boxes. It is a first line of defense in case there flooding or just a leak from something. These are the ones I use for client projects from Walmart. They are big enough to hold six photo boxes. They are also easy to pick up and carry. (but may be a bit heavy) I prefer boxes that do not have movable handles as I have seen a lot break off.
Digitize Your Memories
The best way to save your memories is to digitize them so that you can follow the 3-2-1 Backup Method and easily share them with family and friends. Now I realize that digitizing everything can either be a sizable expense or a huge amount of time, I would prioritize a collection in the following order.
- VHS tapes, film reels, miniDV, etc – it is most likely you no longer have a way to easily enjoy watching these. Also, tape is so sensitive and can deteriorate more quickly.
- Slides – again, most people don’t have a slide projector anymore so they can’t enjoy these memories easily
- Photos – the blessing is that you can enjoy these without them being digitized but it can bring so much peace of mind once you do.
- I highly recommend doing some organizing of photos before scanning, as it is much easier to organize before you scan because you may miss some clues if you digitize first.
- If there is no organization when you start, simply sort by size and shape of the photos.
- Next sort by lab printing on the bag of the images
- For more information on organizing your printed photos check out the course, Printed Photo Organizing Made Easy*.
The point of this post is to not take from a mess of memories to a legacy collection of memories but to give you some tips on keeping those physical (not yet digital) items safe in case of the worst-case scenario.
Remember, the key here is not perfection but progress. Start small and gradually work your way through your collection. Trust me; the feeling of seeing your old memories come to life on a digital screen is priceless!
Overwhelmed and need help getting started? Schedule a time to chat with Lisa about getting your physical items, safe and digitized!
Very informative. I don’t enjoy sorting through photos, but I don’t want to leave it to my kids to do either. I wish I had thought to save only the best photos back when I was taking a lot of photos. It would save me so much time now.