Four simple habits for gathering and keeping family stories, photos and recordings, drawn from the advice of national archives and oral historians.
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In short
Ask the questions only one person can answer, and say who, when and where at the start of each recording.
Give every photo, letter or recording the same four details, and note who told you.
Keep three copies on two kinds of storage, with one somewhere else, and check them once a year.
The people who look after the world’s most important records follow a small set of habits. Most of them work just as well at a kitchen table. This page brings them together in four steps you can use for anything you want to keep: a story, a box of photos, a voice recording or a bundle of letters.
You don’t need to do everything at once. Pick the step that fits what’s in front of you today.
Ask
Some things only one person knows. How a recipe really goes, or why the family moved when they did. Those are the questions worth asking first.
The Oral History Association shares a few habits that make a recorded conversation far more useful later:
Ask whether it’s all right to record before you begin.
At the start of each recording, say who is speaking, the full date, where you are and what you’ll talk about.
Ask open questions, then follow up with “what happened next?” or “what was that like?”
Let the person skip anything they’d rather not talk about.
It helps to ask how someone knows a thing, too. Were they there, or did they hear it from someone else? That small detail makes a story much easier to understand years from now.
If you’d like somewhere to start, our questions to ask are grouped by the chapters of a life.
Record
A photo with no names on the back can become a picture of strangers within a generation. The fix is simple and takes seconds.
Give everything you keep the same four details: who, what, when and where. The US National Archives suggests recording exactly these for each scanned photo or document. On a print, write lightly in soft pencil on the back near the edge, or on the sleeve.
Add one more line: who told you. Family researchers who follow the Board for Certification of Genealogists standards cite a source for every fact. At home, “Auntie Jean, Christmas 2026” is enough. If two people remember something differently, write both down.
Then keep one simple list of what you have and where it lives. A page in a notebook works well. List each box, album or folder, what’s in it and where it’s kept. The Library of Congress suggests keeping a copy of that list with your important papers.
For files on a computer or phone, give each one a name that says what it is, with the date first so they sort in order. The National Archives suggests leaving out spaces, so a name like 1962-06-wedding-mum-and-dad.jpg works well.
Keep
You can’t save everything with the same care, and you don’t need to. The Library of Congress suggests deciding which items matter most and giving those your best attention. If you have several copies of the same photo, keep the best one.
Keep things together as you found them, too. If letters were tied in a bundle, or photos were in a particular album, that grouping is part of the story. Add a note saying whose they were and where they came from.
A cool, dry place in the main part of your home, away from basements, garages and attics
Boxes and folders made for archival storage
No rubber bands, tape or sticky “magnetic” album pages
When you handle them, start with clean, dry hands and no lotion. The National Archives also suggests gloves for photographs, and keeping food and drinks well away.
For anything digital, including scans and recordings, follow one rule: three copies, on two kinds of storage, with one kept somewhere else. The National Archives recommends this rule for family files. In practice, that might be your computer, an external drive and an online storage service.
Two more habits keep those copies healthy:
Once a year, open a few files from each copy to make sure they still work. The Library of Congress suggests a yearly check.
Every five years or so, move your files to newer storage. The Library of Congress suggests this too.
If you scan old photos or letters, hold on to the originals. The National Archives recommends keeping them after scanning.
Share
Things are kept so they can be enjoyed. Tell your family what you have and where it is. Your list from the record step makes this easy.
Share copies and keep the originals safe. A printed photo book or a shared folder lets everyone enjoy the pictures without handling the fragile ones.
Leave a short note with each box, album or folder saying what’s inside and why it matters. Write it for someone who wasn’t there and has never met the people in it.
Finally, take care with people who are still alive. The genealogists’ code of ethics asks members not to publish personal details about living people without their consent. Asking first is a kind habit for any family, too.
A one evening start
If you’d like to try this tonight, choose one thing: a single photo, a recording on your phone or one letter. Write its four details and who told you. Make one more copy and put it somewhere else. Then tell one person in your family where it is.
