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A small family archive starter kit.

You do not need specialist software to make a box of photographs understandable. Download the ready-made metadata sheet, then use this page as a printable checklist while you work through a small first collection.

Download the CSV template

The metadata sheet

Record what the file cannot tell you.

Use one row per photograph, video, recording or document. Leave a field blank when you do not know; write “circa” or “possibly” instead of inventing certainty.

Filename	Date	People	Place	Story	Source	Confidence
1994-07_garden-party_tape-03.mp4	circa July 1994	Rose, Tom, Sarah	Leeds	Tom fell into the paddling pool	Rose, 2026	Date uncertain

Print this part

The first-ten-items checklist.

Choose ten meaningful items.Do not start with the whole camera roll or every box in the loft.
Keep the untouched originals.Work from copies and keep another copy somewhere physically separate.
Use one naming pattern.YYYY-MM-DD_event_place_people works; approximate dates are fine.
Name people and the person behind the camera.Record maiden names or relationships when they will help somebody later.
Write one useful sentence.Why did this day matter? What happened just before or after?
Mark uncertainty.“Possibly Blackpool” is more valuable than a confident mistake.
Ask one relative one specific question.“Is this Joan or Margaret?” gets better answers than “What do you know?”
Agree what stays private.Ask before sharing sensitive photographs, children or difficult family events.
Put the useful copy somewhere people revisit.A folder stores files; a family archive keeps the context and conversation with them.
Add the next ten later.A small collection the family understands beats a perfect project that never starts.

Put the sheet to work

Give the first ten memories a shared home.

Use the spreadsheet as your preservation record, then add the family-facing copies to a private Memrial Timeline where relatives can fill the gaps.

Start a family archive Read the seven-evening guide →