1. SORT AND SELECT
As Lily and I discovered, it's easier to put together an album if your photos are sorted from the start. We organized ours into manila envelopes, by sides of the family and then by decade, which was how we planned to put them in the album. Tip: Once you've chosen your favorite photographs for the album, consider storing the rest in archival photo boxes.
2. SCAN
Don't have a home scanner? Many copy shops, including FedEx Kinko's, have do-it-yourself scanners that allow you to transfer photographs easily and inexpensively to CDs. You can also mail your photos to companies that offer batch-scanning services, such as Digital Pickle (digitalpickle.com). Tip: Make sure the scanned versions of your photos are tightly cropped for better viewing online. And if some of your photos have handwritten notes on the back (which may be the only existing sample of an ancestor's handwriting), consider scanning both sides for an additional bit of personal history.
3. POST AND SHARE
Photo-sharing sites allow you to post photos and gather comments from anyone you invite to the site. Most are free, and some even let you create a private family URL. Most are also password protected, but a few may require you to create an e-mail account. (See our list of favorite sites.)Once your photos are up, you can send an e-mail to your relatives inviting them to view the photos and share their stories, memories, and observations. Have them fill in any facts they know (dates, places, and names) or just comment on things like family resemblances. You can also ask them to send you photos of their own. As the stories come in, jot them down or transfer them to a text file, which you can print out when it's time to create your album. Tip: It's easier to post photos in the order that you plan to arrange them in the album. And make sure each photo has a number or title so you can easily match the stories with the right photos when you're putting everything together.
4. PICK A FORMAT
At many photo-sharing sites, you can create an album online, then have it printed and bound, usually in a matter of days. Decide whether you'd prefer to go this route or make a traditional scrapbook by hand. Each approach has its pros and cons. A scrapbook allows you to lay out your pages any way you'd like and to incorporate important mementos, such as wedding invitations and old postcards. Online albums, on the other hand, are easy to create (just follow the site's directions, then drag and drop your photos into the layout you've chosen), and the finished products look extraordinarily professional, with glossy pages, vivid colors, and, depending on the site you use, a host of visual enhancements, such as fancy photo edges and decorative backgrounds. (Another plus: your relatives can order copies of your book with the click of a mouse.)I'd planned on just doing a traditional scrapbook, but when I saw what I could create online, I couldn't resist making one of each. I found the costs roughly comparable in the end. For the online album, we started with a $30 photo book but added extra pages, which raised the price a bit. The costs of putting together a traditional scrapbook can, of course, vary widely, depending on the album you buy and the embellishments you include.
