My goodness, why all the discouragement. If the OP wants to embark on a project, he should be encouraged and helped. If it turns out to be onerous or tedious, he will find out soon enough. I am sure he has the common sense to cull or just do minimal work on someone and go all out on the most important.

People want old photographs copied and restored for many reasons, family history, sentimental value, memorializing loved ones ther they have lost, and/or having copies made to share with other relatives. Ofttimes there are no high-quality images and we have created displayable portraits for passport pictures, poorly crafted snapshots, photographs that were water or fire damaged, and significantly damage on critical details of the face, etc. Trying to preserve the likeness can be challanging.

In our own home, obviously, we have many family portraits on display. We also have a little corner with an antique desk and a few family artifacts where we have many restored photographs of folks we knew and some ancestors that we never met. Whenever we or a family member finds an old photograph of lost relatives and ancestors, I copy, restore if required and add it to the collection. There are more current images too and someof the family resemblances are amazing.

My favourite is a great-great-aunt at her piano. It was a badly faded tintype that required hours of work- we even restored the frame.

Good luck to the OP and perhaps he will post a few examples.