I have just become a great-grandfather for the first time and it got me thinking. I have only ever had the vaguest memory of the faces of my grandparents when I knew them. My paternal grandfather died before I was born, and when I checked, I discovered that the remaining three grandparents died in successive years 1956, ’57 and ’58. I was in my mid-teens then, and recall many occasions when they were present; I have photos of them with their spouses and families, but very few taken in my lifetime.
Looking through my vast collections of my family photos I have full documentation of my children and grandchildren and already I have enough of my great-granddaughter (born a week ago), to start an album. Because I took most of those photos of my own children, I appear in very few of them and would like to think they have some of me (and their mother)
Photos now are free due to the ubiquitous cameras and phones we all possess, but most of mine are on a desktop hard-drive where they could disappear into cyberspace at the whim of the internet gods. (Note to self – put them on the cloud/dvd/flash-drive or even print them out for once)
Photos of long departed kinfolk have some interest of course and we are all related to Charlemagne, but to have forgotten the faces of people who made us and who we knew when they were alive seems rather sad.
Ramblings of an Old Bloke 
We have just suffered the unthinkable tragedy of losing a granddaughter after ony 756 days. I have had the heart breaking task of sifting throught the thousands of photos and hundreds of videos that these ubiquitous cameras and phones have been able to record. My own children each have an album of photagraphs covering their childhoods that run to less than 100 colour prints from the days of steam photography and Kodak development (other films and developers were available). What a joy technology is.
We have very few photos of you and mum, but I will continue to bully you both to get them taken when we visit! š