I have so many family photos that I simply sometimes forget about them. Are there any tips on how to organize them?

The way I organized them is quite simple and effective.
Couple of shoe boxes.
Guaranteed hours of nostalgic fun.
Every time you browse through them it’s a complete surprise what you’ll encounter next.

I have three shoe/envelope boxes as well as my photo albums I keep pictures in.
Box 1 is for black and white
Box 2 is for color
Box three is for negatives and other things.
The photo albums are where I put the photos worth sharing.
In your case, at least get shoe boxes or envelope boxes (they come with 500 envelopes) to store yours in.

Back in the days before smart phones, I had a thing called a camera. It was just like a phone, except all it did was take pictures. You couldn’t run any apps on it, or call your mom even. It was really primitive.

Anyway, I gained a reputation for being a really good photographer. It took me a while to figure out why, but I finally discovered the secret: take thousands of shots, and keep the best ten or so. No one ever sees all my mistakes; all they ever see is my best, that is, the ones where I accidentally did something right.

Believe it or not, there was a time even before digital cameras. In those days there was a song called “The Gambler”, by a man called Kenny Rogers, who sang, “The secret to surviving is knowing what to throw away and knowing what to keep.” Full disclosure: my survival has never been at stake as a hobbyist photographer, thank goodness.

So, that’s all about me. I love talking about me. Thanks!

Oh, wait, I was supposed to be answering a question. Here’s what you do: wait until you’re in a bad mood, preferably because of the people in your family, but any bad mood will do. Then, start going through your family photos. Keep 5–10 per thousand, and put the other 990 in a box in your closet or something. Be ruthless. Lean toward putting every one of them in the box, and keep only the ones that really jump out at you, the ones that you would be heartbroken never to see again. Don’t get all sentimental, or you’ll end up keeping a bunch of substandard shots. You really have to grit your teeth, but once you’re done, you’ll have a handful of keepers, and a bunch that should never have come into existence.

Be sure to keep the ones that put you in the best light as well. Then you can put your best photos in an album, and everyone will exclaim over the quality of the pictures, and especially how nice you look in all of them. If anyone says, “Wow, you used to be quite attractive,” you may gut-punch them, really hard if it’s your domestic partner.

Purchase archival photo sleeves to preserve old photographs otherwise they will deteriorate quicker and people like me have to spend hours on them to restore them .
On older photographs ..photograph them (Macro photography) to have a digitized version which fills in the original view much sharper and easier to work with if placing in a self published book.
Organization chronologically or separate into Generations ( especially old pics).
And much like a story in a novel you will have a Family History book to hand down to your children’s children etc You created a Legacy and a beginning for others in your family to research their origins etc
I took all of my late mother’s photo album pictures out and placed in archival sleeves, most were 4” X 6 ” pictures while some were 5” X 7” and 8“X 10” but there are archival sleeves for all sizes.
I then placed then into a file folder until we had wildfires nearby and have now transferred the smaller ones in a shoe box ( in there sleeves) and the bigger ones in a file folder but still in there sleeves too. I then packed them all up into a suitcase only for irreplaceable photographs and documents etc for quick escape . I now realize the amount of things piling up that I could not possibly carry in an emergency so now looking at place in a storage facility in a major city? I also kept digital copies on a USB flash drive for immediate viewing whenever I need to use for my research etc.

Shoe boxes that are meant for organizing, especially if you have a large amount. Then you could divide the pictures in the shoe box by year or holiday.

What are you forgetting about those pics? “When did it happen” or “Who’re those people”? If first question pops up in your mind then you can go with the answers above. If it’s second question then that’s different case altogether.