My parents’ albums…were falling apart…

My parents’ albums, dating from the early 1900s to the 1960s, were falling apart and the pages were yellowing. I put everything on acid-free paper/plastic so I could at least preserve the photos.  All of the photos are mounted on acid-free paper with acid-free double-sided tape and placed inside acid-free clear plastic sheet protectors, along with printed descriptive labels mounted on the acid-free paper. All inside three-ring binders, with each covering a certain period of years and branch of the family.

There were a number of photos of people I did not know—and had no one to ask who they were. Those got tossed. There were many of my parents' travels with friends or other engagements with friends and at events; I kept a good-sized representative sample and tossed the rest. It can be difficult to sort and pitch, but no one down the line will be interested in hundreds of pictures of people they do not know and are not related to.

Gary wanted to clarify that he used acid-free card stock, not regular paper. He found the stiffness of the card stock far easier to work with than ordinary paper.

Gary has also used some of these photos to illustrate several family stories. Here is beginning of the story about his paternal grandparents, Theo Engstrand and Bess Wilson. The full story will be posted on the Family History website shortly.