How old photos are helping John piece together his Family Tree.

We had a lovely customer named John from Truro who asked for our help preserving some treasured family photographs he was gathering from some of his elderly relatives. John had always been interested in discovering more about his family history, but he had never found much information about his ancestors. He had tried to do some research online, but he had been unable to find enough information to help him.

Recently retired, John now found he had the time to dedicate to more research and began to piece together his family tree. John knew that his elderly relatives were getting older and their health was declining. He knew they might not be around much longer and didn't want to miss the opportunity to collect their family photos. He knew he had to act fast as his elderly relatives were the only ones with these photos. If his elderly relatives passed away without passing on the pictures, they would be lost forever.

John chose our Essentials service on reLOVE for his family tree project. This straightforward and efficient service lets you work at your own pace.

John knew it would take a while for the family to dig out photos squirreled away in boxes and cupboards, backroom shelves and attics

He didn't want to put any pressure on them. He handed out some sturdy boxes to his relatives, and as they filled them with photos, John packed the boxes and sent them to us using a tracked postal service for high-quality scanning.

The task of finding the photos and the fun of sharing the memories with his family while building his family tree is proving to be very exciting for everyone involved. He wanted the opportunity to gather photos that had been in the family for generations. Knowing no one else had copies enabled him to preserve their memories for future generations.

As the boxes of old photos from his relatives are passed to him, John is using our Essentials photo scanning service to digitise the prints box by box so he can use them in his research. He knows that the photos we receive are almost as dear to us as they are to him, and we ensure they are cared for every step of the way. In no time, his loved ones' precious memories are available to him online in the reLOVE gallery.

At your choice, we will return the photos or carefully destroy and recycle them once uploaded. John chose to have the photographs returned so he could give the originals back to his family members. But he also decided to keep them on the reLOVE cloud while he conducted his family tree research. Eventually, he wants us to make a copy for him to keep on a USB key so he can easily share them with his extended family living in the UK and overseas.