What usually happens is that they become objects of curiosity to those family members or friends tasked with cleaning out your spaces, but they don’t recognize many or most of the the people or places, which don’t trigger memories for others. If you’re lucky, a few survive in family collections. Others end up in thrift stores or collectibles shops where some might eventually find interested buyers. Others go into the trash.
I’ve got a lot of photos. And lots of old photos. My own, my parent’s, my sister’s. A few from my grandparents.
So an announcement by the photo site Flickr caught my eye. Flickr has created a new category of “in memoriam” accounts.
These accounts come after concern from users about what happens to their images after they pass away (or late photographers who still have images on Flickr).
Flickr says ‘in memoriam’ accounts ‘will preserve all public content in a deceased member’s account, even if their Pro subscription lapses […] The account’s username will be updated to reflect the “in memoriam” status and login for the account be locked, preventing anyone from signing in.’
A fine idea, as far as it goes. How about all the other online content of our deceased friends and relatives? Blogs? Facebook accounts? Twitter feeds? Whatever?
Suggestions?
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Good questions, Ian. It’s complicated by the reality that for many folks, material about them is out there electronically that they now regret being there. Even before the Internet, of course, families struggled with what to save and where to save it, but unless there was a passionate family archivist involved, things were pretty much hit or miss, which may not be a bad thing.
Discovering family photos not previously seen can be exciting. I never met my paternal grandfather, an immigrant, but recently one of my sisters found an old photo of him in his younger years sitting with my father during my dad’s early childhood.. It was a formal studio-type photo taken probably in the early 1910s. Both were dressed very formally. The photo helped fill a huge gap–now I know for the first time.what my grandfather looked like.
I wrote a story once for the paper about a Japanese-style house that was being dismantled, rather than being demolished, after the builder/owners died, because it was of architectural significance. While talking the the demo crew, I asked if they found anything interesting hidden away. “Oh, just a bunch of hundred-year-old photos of Japan taken as research. We threw them away.”
I’m wrestling with this question as to what photos do I put on my ancestry. com account. Let’s be honest they no longer become yours there, but all who’s related (if you let one cousin have a copy you know they’ll just pass it on!) . It’s like swearing someone to secrecy Ha! fat chance. You lose control, but I have to be honest at this time my younger relatives don’t really care right now, they may 20 years from now though. I’m more inclined to download them for future relatives reference, but hate the idea a stranger on the internet may take the picture and make some sort of meme out for cheap laughs.