At some point, you will find that you really need to dispose of things like this. I found that a nice fire made "getting rid of" pictures and other treasures much easier than just dumping them in the garbage. Anything else is passing the problem on to someone who will find it just as hard to do.

Pick a nice afternoon. Fix a pitcher of lemonade or something. Make it a memory. I am sure that your mother would approve.

PB

my dear sister in law deb made me a beautiful tape..which i have made into a dvd of jamie and alot of the special photos of her and the family thru the years....i know there are services that will do this for you

I have a similar problem. My dad was a wonderful photographer, and he left me huge quantities of photographs and negatives. Some are quite old, and I'm impressed at how well they have held up...as opposed to today's color pictures, which will fade and disappear a lot sooner.

I've been using my digital camera to take pictures of some of the pictures--ones I particularly want to save. They could also be scanned. But, as you say, what to do with photos of people you don't know? It certainly would make sense to get rid of them. But so far I haven't been able to bring myself to do that. :-)

My kids will have their grandfather's photos to deal with and their mother's as well. I take a lot of pictures. Many are in albums, many are not. But recently I discovered something at Wal-Mart, too--ugly brown plastic photo boxes. So easy to just drop in the pix. So easy to stack the boxes. Far more satisfying than staring at piles of envelopes from the photo processor.

Susan

Socks, I know this would be very time consuming, but if you are not in a rush, you should scan all of the photos first and then copy them onto a disk to save in a safe place or maybe even give them to someone else in the family to save in case your house would burn (God forbid).
Then you could put them in albums. I would check with other older family members and ask them if they happen to know who the other people are in the pictures that you don't know. It would be such a shame to throw pictures away or burn them if someone else may treasure them. I have always hated to get rid of pictures. I have always given them to the person that would appreciate them the most. Since pictures don't take up all that much space, you could just box them up.
If you do decide to dipose of them though, a burning could be a respectful ritual.
Whatever I dispose of that belonged to Christin or Mom will be photographed first. That way, I can always remember the items, but I don't have the object taking up valuable space.
Lu

Save the best, somehow. Fifty to a hundred years from now, family members will 'discover' them and it will be such a pleasure. Below is a link to a web page of old photos from our family. I spans the first half, plus, of the 20th century. My nephew is enjoying it immensely as it goes together. The ones with pets, or interesting backgrounds make the best mementos. 'Just faces' are boring, we think, unless the clothing is memorable.

Here is a link that might be useful: Keeping up with the Joneses

Nell, I tried to pull it up and it said, "Access denied".
So sorry.
I agree about keeping them for future generations!
Lu

Try again now, Lu. There are all these little 'boxes' that the server has to have checked for access. I think it's fixed. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Here is a link that might be useful: The Way We Were

i stored most of my parents in those photo boxes - i had tons and tons of pics from my parents. some of the very old black and white ones i organized in albums. i didnt know most of the people, but it became a huge "hit" for me to take this to family reunions. the other older family members would pour through this album.
deb

Scanning is a great idea...and "time consuming" is putting it mildly! I didn't save any time by photographing my photos. I did so because my scanner isn't hooked up at present, and I figured the camera cost 7 times the price of the scanner, so it could do a good job. Here are two examples: my parents.

FoxesEarth, I meant to add that I love what you did on that Web site. I keep telling myself that I need to do something on the net, especially with pictures and writings of my daughter Gillian.

S.