Childhood scrapbook ideas for your own early years
Sort childhood photos, school papers, drawings and objects by type. Build a timeline from dated records, mark uncertain years, then ask available people what they know without guessing.
An adult childhood scrapbook can begin with a box from a relative, school papers or only a few surviving photos. It can record what you know while leaving missing years open.
The material is mixed: loose prints, report books, certificates, swimming badges, drawings on sugar paper. Most of it is undated, and you were too young to remember much of what it shows.
Make the memory book together
Invite people to send photos and their own words, then choose what goes in the book.
Questions for people who knew you then
- What was I like in the year this photo was taken?
- Where did we live when I started school, and how did I get there?
- What did I refuse to eat, wear or do?
- Which of my drawings did you keep, and why that one?
- What did I say I wanted to be, and when did it change?
- Who were my friends before I could choose them myself?
- What did a normal Saturday look like for us?
- Which toy went everywhere with me, and what happened to it?
- What was going on for you at home or work that year?
- What do you remember about me that I do not?
- Is there anything in the box you want back?
Sort the box before keeping anything
Empty it onto a table and make five piles: photographs, school papers, drawings and writing, certificates and badges, and objects. Do not decide what to keep until everything is sorted.
Copy the front and back of flat items and photograph objects before choosing what belongs in the book. Confirm who owns each original before returning, keeping or discarding it.
- Ask siblings before throwing out anything that may be theirs too.
- Keep anything with handwriting on the back with its front.
Let school reports set the order
Reports carry a year, a school name and often a class or teacher. Lay them out in order and you have a timeline for everything else.
Match undated photographs to a report year by uniform, school building, classmates or the house in the background. Write the year range on a slip kept with the print, not on the print itself.
Ask the people who can identify the material
Ask available relatives, family friends or former classmates about a few items at a time. Record who supplied each identification and distinguish their recollection from a dated record.
If accounts disagree, keep both privately or mark the date uncertain. You decide whether a disagreement belongs in the book; it does not need to become a public family comparison.
Use a list with item number, owner, date range, identification source and confidence. Match each scan to that item number so later corrections reach the right page.
Drawings and early writing
Photograph drawings flat in daylight with the full edge showing. Date them from anything on the back or from the report year they were found with, and keep your own spelling from the time.
Pages to make
The first house
A photograph of the house, a floor plan a parent sketches from memory, and your own memory of one room, each labelled with who supplied it.
School, year by year
The covers or first pages of each report in a row across the spread, with one class photograph and the names of the friends you can still identify.
Things I made
Three drawings or early pieces of writing with their dates, and a parent's own account of why each one was kept.
An uncertain year
Place an undated photo beside the school paper or house detail that helps locate it. Use a year range and credit the person who suggested it, if they agree to be named.
Questions
What should go in a scrapbook of my own childhood?
Use the material that exists: photos, drawings, school papers and objects, with known or approximate dates and credited recollections where people choose to provide them.
How do I date old childhood photos?
Match them to a dated report by uniform, school, classmates or the house behind you. Give a year range where you cannot be exact.
What do I do with bulky keepsakes?
Photograph them on a plain background with something for scale and put the photo in the book. Then decide whether to keep the original.