Genealogy Spring Cleaning - Wednesday

I'm following along this week with The Family Curator's spring cleaning activities. Wednesday's activity is to repair or restore damaged items.  The Family Curator writes:

Archivists and doctors have the same rule: “Do no harm,” but torn documents and damaged photos can be repaired with digital restoration. Scan damaged items and make a note to send out for restoration or to do it yourself. Evaluate broken artifacts such as china, picture frames, or textiles. If you intend to have the item repaired, place all fragments in an archival box or tissue, or wrap in a clean cotton pillowcase. If you don’t plan to repair the damage, decide if you really want to keep the piece. Maybe a photograph would serve as well. Write about the item and why it is special to you or someone in your family.

Last week for Treasure Chest Thursday, I wrote about my mother's and grandmother's baby dolls.  Mom and I are both concerned about them as they are very old and fragile.  She has them displayed on her guest bed right now but wants to have a safe place for them to live long term.  I've ordered two archival boxes for them to live in when Mom has company or just needs them to be safely out of the way for a time.  It was a bit of a challenge as grandma's baby doll has human hair and as I understand from what I've read, should be stored in an unbuffered box.  I sure hope I've got that right!  Anyway, the appropriately sized boxes have been ordered and the babies will soon have a comfy new home.

© 2010, copyright Michelle Goodrum

Genealogy Spring Cleaning - Tuesday

The Family Curator has come up with a week's worth of Genealogy Spring Cleaning Activities. For Tuesday, The Curator says:

Shake the rugs for dust and lost things.
We once found a long-lost wedding band hidden in the depths of a flokati rug. Family documents, photos, and treasures have a way of drifting around a house when they are pulled out to show a relative or to be examined more closely. Gather together any items that have misplaced and return to their archival home. Add any others discovered in the search. Photograph or scan any newly found items to share.

Today I found 2 old photos that were never returned to their homes.  The first is a photo of my great grandfather John Eugene Roos in The Cheney Bakery, which he owned in Cheney, Washington. My second cousin once removed (don't you just love the cousin titles?) examined the wall calendar to date the picture around May 1919.  I had pulled the picture out to scan and send to the Cheney Historical Museum and apparently forgot to put it away.  This is one of my favorite pictures because there is a lot going on even though there is only one person in the picture.  Check out the food in the display cases (yum) and on the wall, the old stove, the wall calendar, wall paper and of course great grandpa.

The other photo I had pulled out of my unidentified photos box because the same cousin wrote me to saying she had identified one of the individuals in the picture.  So now I need to make some notes and put that photo in its new home.

A very successful activity for today!

© 2010, copyright Michelle Goodrum

Genealogy Spring Cleaning - Air Out the Archives

The Family Curator has come up with a weeks worth of Genealogy Spring Cleaning activities. Here's today's mission:

Monday – Air out the archives.

Open storage closet and remove all archival boxes to check for damp, mildew, or any signs of moisture. Consolidate storage materials as much as possible. Inventory contents of closet and keep with genealogy files; include a snapshot of the storage closet. Write a blog post about how you started your family archive, and where you keep everything. Post the photo of your family archive.

The family archive started over 10 years ago when I realized the boxes in my parent's garage contained pictures and papers from my grandparent's house.  Some of the contents of the boxes are originally from my great grandfather's home.  Slowly I have been bringing boxes over to my house.  Most of it is stored in an interior closet in our home.  As luck would have it, it's the one room that seems to stay at a pretty constant temperature year round. It's also easy to keep it relatively dark since the room isn't used much.  Most of the overflow is in another cabinet but there is more coming in all of the time and I'm running out of room to put things.

While I have organized and scanned a good many of the items, I have come to realize that it would be better to get the remaining items out of the cardboard boxes and into something that is archivally safe before attempting to scan them all.  It just takes too long to organize and scan at the same time.  This way I can consolidate things and make more room for new items.

Here is a very high level inventory of the archive which is composed of photos, various papers and albums.

17 boxes/crates of slides

2 Extra large flat boxes

12 small boxes

18 medium boxes

9 large boxes

In addition, there are 6 large cardboard boxes, from my grandparents house, that need attention sooner than later.  Last week, I ordered archival boxes for the contents which is primarily composed of photos, business papers, correspondence and postcards.

I'll keep you posted on my progress.

© 2010, copyright Michelle Goodrum