You don't have to sort it all at once — a calm guide to inherited family archives
There's no deadline. This is a guide for people who feel like they should be 'getting on with' the family photos and want permission to slow down.
5 min read
One of the most common feelings people describe when they inherit a box of family photographs is guilt — as if the box is a job that they should have finished by now.
You didn't inherit a job. You inherited an archive. Archives are looked after slowly, and the good ones are looked after over decades.
The archivist's rule: stabilise first, decide later
Museum conservators have a simple order of operations. First, stop the collection getting any worse — get it out of the loft, out of direct sunlight, away from radiators. Second, catalogue it lightly. Third, and only third, decide what to do with it.
What 'stabilise' looks like at home
In practice, that means: keep it inside the house, at roughly the temperature you'd sit in comfortably, in a container with a lid, not in a sealed plastic bag (which traps moisture).
The one thing that is time-sensitive
Video tapes, cassette tapes, and cine film are the exceptions. Magnetic tape genuinely does degrade year on year, and the equipment to play it back is disappearing. If you have any tape in the box, that's worth digitising sooner rather than later — the paper photos will wait.
Trusted with family archives
Umberdosh Restoration
We can start with just the tapes if you like. Photographs can follow when you're ready — no minimum, no pressure.
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