So I'm here at the moment: my mother died last week (94, fifth stroke, was never going to end well). Her written notes of "stuff" are from around 2003: my brother and I are going through this and going " do you remember this thing?" "Who is "Cat" and why would he/she be getting some ancient ornaments which neither of us can identify? " "Neither of us have seen this object in decades and it was seriously ugly when we saw it last".

There is a whole lot of stuff that we think (hope) she distributed a couple of decades back - it certainly isn't here. What we do have is a monumental pile of greeting/birthday/sympathy/ post cards, all of which are getting recycled, together with enough photos to choke a large quadruped (many of them slightly out of focus).

If you are trying to pass things on to posterity, for the love of all good keep accurate records with pictures and for the love of all holy please weed things out so that your executors stand a chance of executing your wishes.