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Family History Documents and Artefacts => FH Documents and Artefacts => Topic started by: salt on Wednesday 20 June 18 09:52 BST (UK)
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As I tidy up the 7 volumes of my family history - retyping updated files, discarding unwanted notes, inserting new dividers etc- i wonder what I'm going to do with it. My children are not really interested enough to find storage space for it, nor any other members of my close family. The 7 archive quality boxes are supplemented by photograph albums, photocopies of handwritten documents and CDs.
The content is the result of years of research and intellectual effort, as well as the expense of buying certificates (I dare not count how many) and parish register transcripts. One branch of my family consists mainly of ag. labs, the other records families responsible for the growth of the South Wales tin and iron industry; no landed gentry, some interesting emigrants to USA and Australia, a murderer and a bigamist.
I'm sure this hotchpotch is typical of many family trees, and I'm not the only one to face this problem. I'd be grateful for any suggestions that don't involve the recycling bin.
Thanks, Salt
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A few quick ideas. Put it on the internet, either on one of the genealogy websites or upload photos of the documents on Flickr, try and find a local library which might be interested, find a student who wants a subject for a web design project.
Martin
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It sounds like the kind of thing the Society of Genealogists accepts.
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I would put it somewhere safe in the hope that your children may be interested at a much later date. In amongst those notes they may find answers to things that they wished that they asked about when you were here to answer them. ;D
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My Genealogy was on the old (steam locomotive) PAF. At least it was on something. I started to get nervous too so had it transferred to familysearch.org.
Mostly England and Monmouthshire, Scotland, Wales a little Irish and nearly everywhere including Afghanistan to Zambia (well it was actually Northern Rhodesia).
Highlights include British Guiana and around the British West Hartlepool area but not BWH itself.
Feel much happier now.
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Many thanks for these suggestions - much appreciated. The tree is on paper although I have created an online tree on Tribal Pages, but its all the associated documents, certificates and potted histories of individual families.
Salt
Ps Love the ref to British West Hartlepool.
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I would put it somewhere safe in the hope that your children may be interested at a much later date. In amongst those notes they may find answers to things that they wished that they asked about when you were here to answer them. ;D
That would be my advice too....I wasn't interested when I was younger and now I am, there is no one left to ask.
Carol
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There are various groups who research a particular family name ...if any of your family names are in a well researched group you could donate to them
What about a local history group ...facts and pictures of your family may be of historic value to others researching their families in same villages .
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I knew my daughter wasn't interested, but my neice suddenly started showing an interest - she wanted to take my grandmother's autograph book and grandfather's 1ww army cap badge, when we turned my mother's house out. And then decided to read history at Uni. You never know!
My one-place study will end up at the local museum, I suspect - although it does worry me that it'll fall by the wayside as technology advances, and end up in a dusty cupboard. I had hoped Rootschat would be a safe home, but with the webpages there off-line for months, that's doubtful. (Just had to fill a form in to try and get them back!)
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I would give it to the uninterested children , with the proviso that it is kept for the next generation.
I have found that somebody in each generation is interested and it would be a shame even criminal ;D to deprive them of their history.
You never know, your own children may come to value it in the future.
Don't give it away , it belongs to your descendents !
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My Genealogy was on the old (steam locomotive) PAF. At least it was on something. I started to get nervous too so had it transferred to familysearch.org.
May I ask about the transferring to familysearch.org. Whilst I have always thought this was a good idea because of all the records they have made freely available to the public what puts me off is the suggestion I have seen made several times that whenever you upload data to the familysearch site anyone can amend it. Do you know anything about this please ?
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7 archive boxes seems like a lot of paper to me! More than I would have space for, anyway!
Like Martin, I suspect that you could pass on and share the results of your research more easily with family members, other researchers and organisations if it was 'digitised' as much as possible:
1. digitising any content (documents, notes, photos, certificates, etc.) that isn't yet in a digital form
2. making the content available in a way that different people can find the information they're interested in.
You could upload a Gedcom file (you can export one from tribalpages) for free to other websites like Ancestry and FamilySearch. Your basic tree data would then be available to a wider group of family researchers than on TribalPages. Message boards are useful too.
Software like FTM 2017 and RootsMagic7 is useful for importing Gedcom files, adding digital media and links to online documents, notes/stories, and publishing everything to Ancestry, FamilySearch or your own website.
Having a website (too) might give you the most flexibility in 'telling your story' and making documents available. You could provide links to longer (PDF) documents stored either on the website or stored separately 'in the cloud'. You could include links to your on-line trees and include a link to your website in your on-line 'profiles'.
As Martin suggests, it would be ideal to enlist the help of a internet-savvy student/volunteer in this.
Mike
When you have backed-up copies of your 'digitised archive', you can better assess which documents have value in their current physical form and which ones could be removed (and printed out again from the digital version if necessary).
Mike
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Thanks for all these suggestions, lots of food for thought -I think I will start warning our offspring that they need to find some space.
Salt
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I've got the same dilemma, who to give mine to.
Just one family name in particular, I have 5 lever arch files full of documents, letters, post cards, lots of bmd's, photos....and endless amounts of records. Several years in the making.
I'm very tempted to give mine to a fhs that exists in the town where this family came from, and I know that some members also have an interest in this family, some even related.
It's a tough decision to make.
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I wouldn't replace the paper stuff you have with "technology". Technology changes - whatever format you would use to save the info in now, will be obsolete in time. Just looking at fairly recent years, stuff saved on "floppy disc" is now useless, then came CDs, then the internet. Stuff one had stored only continued to be stored providing the means by which it is stored was frequently updated. So if no one has any interest for a while - the means of storage becomes obsolete and the information impossible or at least challenging, to retrieve. I am sure in time the internet as we know it will be replaced by something else and people will reminisice about "old fashioned gedcom files" in the same way as we think of Sinclair Spectrum 'computers' running with a cassette tape!
Your descendents are must more likely to be fascinated by finding a box of long lost papers outlining their ancestry in the attic, which they can immediately flick through and read - than by some form of technology that is outdated - eg if in a generation or twos time a box of floppy discs was found when clearing out a house, it would probably go straight in the bin.Or if stuff was saved "on the internet" and the whole concept of the internet had changed during years when no one was interested in Family History, then the info would all be gone. Even if it wasn't (and I am sure it will be!) then a descendent in a future generation would only find it if they had an interest and went looking - whereby finding that old box in the attic might just spark an interest that otherwise would never have been.