@DJC3
What I did with the family photos, and I had a lot like you, was to divide them in piles. So my 3 children and myself. 4 piles.
I chose the ones I really wanted for me.
Then in the 3 of my children’s piles (they are all grown up adults 2 of them have their own children. I put the most appropriate in each pile. Then the ones that were left I divided between the 3 piles.
I bought some photo albums, the type where you lift the self seal plastic and placed them under. It is also easy to change them round in this kind of album if you want to. It is also easy for the grandchildren to take them out for their school projects.
Then I handed each of my grown up children their albums.
The two that had grandchildren greatly appreciated them and I got feedback off that. My son who is not married and never intends having offspring put his in a cupboard, although he did appreciate receiving his childhood and family photos.
This in my opinion is the easiest, at least to me the least time consuming method. Yes it still takes a little while to do, but nothing as time consuming and scanning to a disc which will probably end up at the back of a drawer.
As you are sorting, memories will come. You hold the history of the past. Little stories that your children know nothing about, or were not interested in listening to at the time when you told them, will come to mind. What I did was write down the stories, just short memories, and insert them in the albums.
This may be of interest to both your children and grandchildren. It was to mine.
This is by the by, but I have decided to expand those written memories, because both sets of grandchildren were very interested. I am only just starting this now, but I have bought some pen and ink and am writing memories when they come to with little picture drawings. So one memory to a sheet of paper and date for the approximate year. Photocopy them 4 times and post to each grandchild. I have made a folder for each grandchild so they can keep these memories in them. I will keep the originals so maybe I can do something with them at a later point.
My partner was 20 years older than me and he was always going to do something like this for his son. He said there was always time. But there wasn’t. He died before he started. So much history was lost. He had amazing memories and had been asked to go into schools and talk to schoolchildren. Which he did.
There is no time like the present moment to get started with anything....and baby steps are good...the mountain cannot be tackled in one go...but it can bit by bit...
>^..^<