If you have these in digital form, I suggest that you print the most treasured ones on good photo paper to serve as a backup. Store these flat with a non-stick archival quality separators between each photo, better yet, slip each photo into an archival quality sheet protector. Sheet protector can be found at office supply stores. Lowest cost per protector is to buy by the box-full. Include with each photo place, date taken, and names of people. If the photo was taken at an event, name that event for example, Thanksgiving day at Bill Jone's house. If something out of the ordinary happened, also record it, for example, Billy chipped a tooth while sledding on the hill behind the house. These little notes tells a family history that would otherwise be forgotten in the future.

Mow, about digital storage. The problem here is to pick something that can be read 10 to 20 years or more later. PCs and personal recording media has changed rapidly over the past 20 years with the result that older media can not be read because the technology was abandoned as new and better things came along; think 5.25" floppies, 3.5" floppies, superdisk, various tapes, and recently, CDs. Today, of this list, the average PC can read only the CD and believe it or not, the CD is going away, too. I keep one computer equipped to read 3.5" floppies for retrieval purposes. In a pinch, I can still read and write 5.25 floppies (That's caveman era for a computer.)

I have been storing photos on CDs, but last winter I took a genealogy course and the instructor convinced me that CDs may go away within 10 years if not sooner. She advised the class to store records on DVDs as these will still be around after the stores stop selling CDs. A DVD holds so much more data than a CD and that spells the end to the CD. I brought up my concern that I thought that a CD was a more secure recording media than a DVD owing to its larger 'spot' size; DVDs spot size is extremely small and more easily damaged or corrupted. The instructor said maybe so, but the DVD has been developed enough to take over and it will. CDs are going away. She urged the class to copy their genelogical data and photos to DVDs She also recommended to use archival quality DVDs. These cost more but have a better backing material. One has to seach to find these because most stores stock only the average disc, but if you treasure your data, you'll use archival quality media for long term storage.

You can store mountains of data on external hard drives and at a very resonable cost. These should be drives that are not used on a daily basis, only for data storage and retrieval. Again, if you depend on these, keep aware of changing technology in the interface between the drive and computer. If you buy an external drive today, i'll most likely have a USB port. Just think, a little over 10 years ago, there were no USB. The ports could change again in the next 20 years and you'll need to shift your data to another media.

One caveat: A DVD may better survive the shock of a drop than a hard drive.

Some may be tempted to use "Thumb Drives" for permanent storage. These have solid state memories, no moving parts, and are very compact. This is very tempting, but I do not recommended it. There are technical reasons. The storage junctions are good for about 10,000 read/write cycles before failue. Manufacturers have develped schemes to use all the junctions by moving partitions in memory so that eventually, every junction gets used. This spreads the useage over the entire drive. This process is transparent to the user. This feature made possible commercialization of the product and for the average home user, he's unlikely to run into the wear-out problem. However, a gamer might.

The second feature is that the memory is volatile; It requires a voltage source to keep the memory "alive". Fortunately, the current drain is extremely small for this task and can be provided by a small, long life battery, Typically a lithium battery. This is the thumb drive's achilles heel. Eventually, that batteriy will fade and the drive will be scrap. About 10 years is expected. Again, this technology is a moving target and some day, we might see thumb-drives with non-volatile memory.

But for now, I recommend thumb-drives only for temporary storage. I would not depend on one to hold data for 15 years.

Some folks may give up on managing data storage and opt for the cloud. Wonderful, but how sure are you that the business model for cloud computing will survive?

(The instructor I mentioned is well grounded in this technology. She teaches classes to certify IT people for MicroSoft Windows Support and maintence.)

Fifty years from now when we are dead and gone and our media trashed, think about a future family genealogist discovering that backup box of photos and the notes that go with them. She/he will be joyful and will suddently become an expert family historian. It is advised that you print all photos, notes, and text on acid free paper with fade resistant ink. You can't beat hard copy for endurance.

Geez, I've almost convinced my self to start scrap booking my genealogy family data. I could include historical happenings such as presidental elections, war beginings and endings, photos of schools and other public buildings that are scheduled for tear down, etc.

WOW....Good Info. Thanks! I am an "old" scrapbooker, and have been postponing the job of getting recent photo's etc. into the books, thinking how much easier it is to 'just store' them on a CD or 'thumb thingy' and at 'cloud'; while my instinct really has been the "old fashioned" holding the scrapbook or making a coffee table book during the summer when grands are likely to be around. Those photo albums are such a comfort thing. Thanks!

Thanks Jim. I have a lot of albums, unfortunatly most were before acid-free.I think one thing I need to do before anything else is to seperate the ones were we have history from the unidentied. When I say I have a lot I am serious. LOL There are about 6 large storage containers. I have been putting mine in acid free sheet protectors, but I have many more that need to be. Thanks for you thought about the pros and cons of each method.