Oct 2, 2009

Boxes and Boxes

It's hard for me to imagine genealogy research without the luxury of modern technology. Today, if I want to check new information on census records I just log in to Ancestry.com! I love to visit libraries but with online catalogs I know exactly what they have and what I'm looking for.

As my Mom and I were going through my Grandmother's boxes I realized the time and energy it took to collect that information. Letter writing and a lot of waiting for returns. I imagine it was exciting, though, after months of waiting for a reply, you would get something in the mailbox and can't wait to get to the house to read it! The anticipation must have been fun.

We are now in the process of scanning these old photos, documents and Correspondence. Some are very fragile and it's a slow process. When that is finished, we'll have organized electronic versions of everything.

Now for preserving the contents of these boxes? There is plenty of information out there on preserving old papers and most of it seems confusing. We don't want to hire a professional archivist, at least not at this point. Preservation and storage isn't something we really wanted to get into! I've found this article on "Old Paper" which makes it all seem more doable. I'll be off to the craft store to buy some acid free sleeves, which will hopefully protect what we have until we can do better.