How many years.....

[IgorStrav]

I'm just about to move house (if the contracts ever get signed) and this means I have to finally sort out all my books. 

They have been stored for some years in floor to ceiling bookcases covering two complete walls in a room which has been used by my stepson as his art studio.  This means that he more or less completely blocked access to them by stacking canvases many layers deep against them, erecting easels, setting up a trestle table covered with art equipment etc etc etc.

I could see the top couple of shelves but couldn't get to them.....

Anyhow, his detritus, sorry, equipment has now been taken into storage and I have now been given access to the books I've not seen since c 2013 (when the ceiling fell down in the room and I had to carry them somewhere else for the duration, though that's another story.  Nobody injured I should add, perhaps).

And how many books and other memorabilia have I found!

Lots of history books, unread for years, OH's chess books, sheet music of every genre, postcards, photographs, concert programmes, a certificate recording my climb of the Great Wall of China and - just now - the book I knew existed which records my Gx3 Grandfather's death at sea off Brightlingsea in 1823 when he was on his way home from a rescue.

This has of course taken me back to my tree, and thence to all the information I'd attached to him, and thence to my email files where I discover all the remote relatives on this line I have been in touch with over - now - 20 years  . 

And links to old RC queries where helpful people, many of whom are still here, researching and posting, whose answers I'm amazed to read - because I can't even remember posting the queries.

Somewhat of a long story to share that, in this particular 'hobby', years fly by and you can't believe it's been 8 years/10 years and more since you were last in touch with cousins who you feel a vague affinity/fondness for, even though you've not thought about them or written for aeons.

And some of them don't reply to your mails and you fear that sadly they may now be no longer with us, and you can't share that exciting discovery you've just made on a line you had loads of mails about way back when.  Which you KNOW they'll be interested in.

It never ends, does it?

Thanks to all of you who've helped over the years.  I've not finished yet, either 


PS added:  and I was able to find, and share with my son, more details about my Gx3 Grandfather's experience as a Private in the Royal Marines on HMS Belleisle at the Battle of Trafalgar, and wonder yet again at the miracle of the resilience and chance of survival in desperate circumstances of our ancestor which enabled me and him to actually even be here.

[Gillg]

My husband has been collecting books for over 20 years and all four of his study walls are lined with shelves of double-stacked books from floor to ceiling.  There are literally thousands of them and he's still collecting!  Some are in piles on the floor.  There are jokes in the family about what will happen to them when he dies.  My son (the philistine) will probably take the lot to the tip.  My daughter will take a few of the art books.  Some are destined to go to various archives - a nice job for someone.  I tell him that I am definitely going to die first, because I can't cope with the job.  As his interests have changed over the years he has collected large numbers of books on different topics, though sadly none of them have anything to do with family history.  History of art, book illustration, garden design, science (he is a physicist), botany, philosophy and other specialist interests are among his library.  His computer, too, is full of collected information and he runs his own website on one particular topic. When we moved house to downsize we had to be sure to find a house with an extra ground floor room for a study, as the weight of the books is too great for them to be upstairs.  I don't clean in his study - that's his responsibility.

I'm afraid he takes after his mother, who never threw anything away, as he also has a large garden shed full of tools and DIY stuff.  "You never know when this might come in handy,"  he says, and indeed he managed to repair a leaking loo yesterday by finding exactly the right size of washer among his store, so I can't complain there. 

My little collection of books, mostly foreign language stuff lives in a modest bookshelf in the spare room and my family history documents in the pull out drawers under the bed there. 

 

[Top-of-the-hill]

  "I have now been given access to the books I've not seen since c 2013."

  And you could have been reading your way through them during lockdowns!

[Girl Guide]

Yes, keeping books is lovely, but eventually you have to bite the bullet and reduce the quantity that you have.

If I had kept all the books that I have read in the last 40 or so years, I just wouldn't have room to move.  I have now whittled my books down to a manageable level.

Gillg - I can sympathise with the 'it might come in handy' scenario.  My husband was the same and my goodness me, what a lot of stuff I had to chuck out that he had kept.   

[ThrelfallYorky]

Sorry. I'm afraid I can't throw books out, either. Popular paperbacks I can bag and donate, but "real" books enter the front door, get read and then climb onto a shelf.
And if there's no room on the shelves?
Build another set of bookshelves.
And if there's no room for more bookshelves?
Build an extension to the house.
And if that gets filled?
Build another.
That's the story of OH and self so far. First thing we did when we married was start making built in bookshelves. Never really stopped. We've wide interests so books on all subjects you can imagine. Once frightened ourselves finding out what the cost of replacing them would be. But it'd be almost impossible for some of the more unusual ones - out of print, etc.)
Terrifying thought, ever having to move house...
Please, don't frighten me like that!

[Gillg]

I am a great reader of fiction, but rarely want to keep it, so patronise the local library.  Husband does not possess a single work of fiction.  I, on the other hand, have very few reference books, but as a linguist have lots of foreign texts and some large dictionaries!

[IgorStrav]

I've switched to Kindle, but I'm still finding as I sort through the books, that there are many I can't bear to dispose of....

Good news is that the school is happy with the 600 or so I'm giving them (not too many, they're reorganising the library); I put a post out on Freegle and have had a number of replies; and the specific Kids bookcase has now been emptied of the ones I'm not keeping and the results were taken by someone yesterday who was thrilled to have them for their little boy.

But what to do with the Certificate awarded for climbing the Great Wall of China???

[eadaoin]

But what to do with the Certificate awarded for climbing the Great Wall of China???

Scan it and add to your family history? Then  . . (I couldn't throw it away, but I carefully haven't collected certs like that)

[Top-of-the-hill]

  My certificate for taking a flight in a small plane over Mount Cook is so old it is in a proper album with the photographs.