Relaxing and Rehumidifying an Old Poster - Part 4

This is the fourth and final post in a series about my experiences with rehumidifying and flattening oversize documents and photographs based on Denise Levenick's, "Photo Tutorial: How to Relax and Rehumidity Old Rolled Photographs and Documents."

The last item I flattened is an old panorama poster circa 1920s-1930s. So like the previous photographs I flattened, it's long but this poster is on heavy paper.

This item is a little longer than the photograph from Part 3. Since my experience with the bathtub didn't work so well, I decided to stick with the "humidifying chamber" and drape the partially unrolled poster over the edges of the rack, like I did with the second picture in Part 3. This was a bit nerve wracking because the poster was just long enough that it might droop into the water at the bottom of the chamber. I decided to try it anyway.

The short version is that after only a short time, I discovered one edge in the water! Panic! I removed the poster and quickly got it between the sheets of blotting paper and weight it down. I prayed the poster wasn't ruined. It didn't look like it was when I pulled it out. As you can see, everything is OK. If you look closely, you can see a slight water line along the right hand side of the poster.

I hope you've enjoyed this series and are encouraged to attempt to unroll some of your oversize documents and pictures. Just take heed of the mistakes and lessons I learned the hard way! As Denise said in her post, "For your first project, select a photo or document that is NOT a priceless heirloom."

Other posts in this series:
Relaxing and Rehumidifying an Old Document - Part 1
Relaxing and Rehumidifying an Old Document - Part 2
Relaxing and Rehumidifying Photographs - Part 3

URL for this post: http://turning-of-generations.blogspot.com/2014/06/relaxing-and-rehumidifying-old-poster.html

© 2014, copyright Michelle Goodrum

Relaxing and Rehumidifying Photographs - Part 3

This is the third post in a series about my experiences with rehumidifying and flattening oversize documents and photographs based on Denise Levenick's, "Photo Tutorial: How to Relax and Rehumidity Old Rolled Photographs and Documents." Also, reader Laura Cosgrove Lorenzana had some excellent observations in the comments section of Part 1 that you might want to read.

I had long narrow items that needed to be unrolled. One is a poster. The other a photograph. Both presented new challenges and provided me with the opportunity to commit errors. Hopefully you will learn from what I did wrong!

First the photograph. It went into the "humidification chamber," like the other items before it. After a bit, I was able to somewhat unroll it.

The next step is where I ran into trouble. The photograph is too long for the chamber. Denise suggested using a bathtub and closing up the room. So I gave it a try.

And this is where I ran into trouble and I only have myself to blame!

First, the document dried out. I just could not get that room to become humid. Period. Remember, I'm in Phoenix, Arizona. You've heard the saying, "But it's a dry heat." Well, heat or not, we live in a very dry climate. As I write this post in June 2014, the humidity outside is 3%. Let me rewrite that - three percent. When I did this little experiment in early spring, the humidity was double: 7%. If I were to do this experiment again. And I probably will. I'll wait until monsoon season so we at least have some humidity to work with from the get go.

Second, I think it would have been better to lay a flat surface on top of the racks. Then lay the picture on the flat surface. Again, my bad.

This was the result:

You see those little cracks along the bottom? I don't know if they were there to begin with but we are trying to avoid those.

So I tried another long photograph. It wasn't quite as long as the first one so, after making sure the ends wouldn't end up in the water, I went back to my original method I used with the documents. It worked beautifully.

After spending time under the blotting paper with weights on top, this photograph came out with no cracks.

Next I attempted to unroll what I'll call an old panorama poster. It was looong. Longer than any of the other items. And boy did I screw up!


Relaxing and Rehumidifying an Old Document - Part 1
Relaxing and Rehumidifying an Old Document - Part 2
Relaxing and Rehumidifying an Old Poster - Part 4

URL for this post:http://turning-of-generations.blogspot.com/2014/06/relaxing-and-rehumidifying-photographs.html

© 2014, copyright Michelle Goodrum

Relaxing and Rehumidifying an Old Document - Part 2

Denise Levenick wrote some excellent instructions for rehumidifying old photos and documents that have been rolled up so that they will lay flat. If you haven't read her post, "Photo Tutorial: How to Relax and Rehumidity Old Rolled Photographs and Documents," you should. Also, Laura Cosgrove Lorenzana had some excellent observations in the comments section of Part 1. I'll wait while you catch up and then we'll talk about my second experience with flattening an oversize document that spent many decades rolled up.

This is my great grandfather's college diploma from 1891 so there's no telling how long it spent in this condition. I'm pretty sure it's been like this since long before I was born. Because of this and it’s large size I was faced with a bigger challenge than with the last document.

There was no way I could unroll it inside the large plastic bin I was using. So I improvised which made me very nervous.  After it had begun to rehumidify, I unrolled the diploma just enough for it to hang over the edges of the rack it was sitting on. I was careful to be sure it didn’t touch the sides of the plastic bin. and that it wouldn’t droop low enough to dip into the water at the bottom of the bin.

Since I was nervous about the whole set up, I didn’t leave the diploma like that for very long at all. In the end, I definitely should have left it longer. This is what the diploma looks like right out of the rehumidification chamber.

This is what it looked like after a couple of weeks under the blotting paper.  Not bad but I can’t help but think the ends would have ended up flatter if I had just given it more time to rehumidify.

Next up are the long photographs and a poster. The results were mixed in part because of operator error (me) so you will definitely want to read the post. I hope you learn from my mistake!

Other posts in this series:
Relaxing and Rehumidifying an Old Document - Part 1
Relaxing and Rehumidifying Photographs - Part 3
Relaxing and Rehumidifying an Old Poster - Part 4 

URL for this post:http://turning-of-generations.blogspot.com/2014/06/relaxing-and-rehumidifying-old-document.html

© 2014, copyright Michelle Goodrum

Relaxing and Rehumidifying an Old Document - Part 1

Back in July 2013, Denise Levenick, over at her blog, The Family Curator, wrote about flattening photos and documents that had been rolled up.

Since I have quite a few of those myself, I decided to give her instructions a try. You really should read her post. She does an excellent job of explaining the background and providing instructions. Head over and read it, then come back. I'll be waiting.

OK so now that you have a better understanding of what Denise did, here are my results.

First, I selected a smaller document that spent several decades being rolled up so it wasn't about to flatten out on its own.

Into the "humidification chamber" it went.

After about 8 hours, I was able to unroll it. I was surprised at how much the humidity changes the feel and flexibility of the paper.

After about another 10 hours I pulled the document from the chamber and placed it on the blotting paper.

Another layer of blogging paper was placed over the document. Then a bunch of the biggest, heaviest books I own were placed on top. I left town for a couple of weeks and forgot all about it.

Here's what it looked like upon my return. Pretty slick eh?

Note: The 8 hours and 10 hours is just how long I happened to leave the document in the humidification chamber. Maybe it could have been done in a shorter amount of time, maybe not. I also wonder how much the humidity in the surrounding environment affects this process. Here in Arizona, our humidity is pretty low. Sometimes it's almost non-existent. Seriously. It was 7% recently outside. Inside the house the humidity approached 20%. So maybe rehumidification takes longer? I don't know.

Next I tried an over sized document that had been rolled up much longer. This one proved to be more of a challenge. Check back tomorrow to see how that went.

Other posts in this series: 

Relaxing and Rehumidifying an Old Document - Part 2
Relaxing and Rehumidifying Photographs - Part 3
Relaxing and Rehumidifying an Old Poster - Part 4 

URL for this post: http://turning-of-generations.blogspot.com/2014/06/relaxing-and-rehumidifying-old-document_23.html

© 2014, copyright Michelle Goodrum

Introducing The 21st Century Organized Family Historian

Compliments of freeclipartnow

In 2012 you can look right here, at The Turning of Generations, every Sunday, for my new series The 21st Century Organized Family Historian.

I'm finding myself in an interesting position in the aftermath of clearing out The Family Home, as the curator of my family's archives. But this family's archives cover a span of over 130 years from the earlier years of photography, a time when letters were handwritten or typed and copies were made with carbon paper, through the digital age of today. Somehow I've got to get this mess mass of information organized so that it will be useful not only for myself but future generations. It needs to be preserved but also presented in a way that will appeal to my children's generation; a generation that was born in the digital age.

(OK, read between the lines here - my house is a freaking mess now and I want to get it cleaned up and get on with life and family history. There. I said it!)

Since I know I'm not alone in this position, I'm working on a weekly series with small projects so we can take baby steps toward getting our family's materials organized in a useful and appealing way.

Each week I will post a "project" that can be completed in one week. These will be based on the many projects from my family archives. Then in a separate post, I'll explain the specific task I chose and how I completed it. I hope you Wonderful Readers will participate by posting comments or in your own separate post with:

1. Suggestions for how we might go about completing our projects, or
2. A project of your own based upon the posted "assignment."

I hope many of you will be moved to participate regularly or when the topic moves you. In the process we will get control of this mess err, mass of material and information in a way that will allow us and those who come after to use it effectively in this 21st century digital age.

I'm working on a badge for participants to display on their blogs or web pages so stay tuned...

Related posts in reverse chronological order:

Develop a Digital Organizational Scheme - Week 2
Resources for Organizing the Family Archive
Badge
Week1 - Holiday Greeting Cards

© 2011, copyright Michelle Goodrum

Organize Your Family Archive Webinar

I just finished the "Organize Your Family Archive" webinar with Denise Levenick. All I can say is WOW!! I am not new to this topic and Denise had a fantastic approach to dealing with a large collection (have I ever mentioned I have a large humongous collection?) and some really good suggestions. My favorite had to do with an analogy of creating a parking lot when unpacking a box of items. Not gonna say anymore. You have to watch it for yourself! Check it out!

Seriously, I left feeling like I can get through all of this stuff. It can be done.

© 2011, copyright Michelle Goodrum

Disclaimer: I paid for this webinar with my hard earned money and it was worth every penny. I am not affialiated in any way with Family Tree University. Just a regular ol' customer.

Input Needed for 2012 Genealogy Blogging Projects

Now that we are nearing the close of 2011, it’s time to begin considering goals for next year, as they relate to family history and this blog. Even though the Family Home has been cleared out and sold, there is still plenty of material to keep going for years to come. One of the things I would like to do is write some mini-series on topics that will help my readers solve their problems, while keeping with the goals of The Turning of Generations: blogging about home sources, developing questions, then researching to find answers and putting together a product of interest to future family members or historians. I need your input. What would you like to read about in 2012? Here is a list of potential topics I have come up with. Do any of them look interesting to you. Or do you have any other ideas where my "expertise" could be of help to you?

1. How to use genealogical records to identify family photos. In this case, using my great grandparents’ homestead file to identify many of those unknown pictures in Frances Lowe’s candy boxes of pictures (that’s where she stored them, in old candy boxes!).
2. The ongoing process of sorting and organizing the contents of the Family Home.
3. How I am organizing and culling several generations of family photos and slides.
4. The process of organizing, researching and telling Grandpa’s WWI story using his own letters, photos and other documents.
5. Family lore, fact or fiction? Mom had an inheritance from a Canadian ancestor. Well the inheritance was fact but the circumstances surrounding it had to be considered lore until some solid evidence turned up, which it did. Now to follow the trail…
6. How to go about verifying a family story. In this case, my husband’s ancestor used to have to hide from the Indians while her parents were away. Allegedly the parents were killed by Indians.

Let me know what you think! I figure this is a win, win situation. You win because you get to read about some things that interest you. I win because a project or two get completed - and there are plenty of those around here!

© 2011, copyright Michelle Goodrum

Progress on the Archival Closet on Sorting Saturday

Last spring I did some organizing in the Archival Closet. You can do this too! Basically, I was trying to get the beginnings of an organizational scheme going and remove the collection from those ancient, nasty cardboard boxes they had been living in for the past several decades. For the most part, I used archival quality (acid free, lignin free) materials: boxes, file folders and file folder inserts. However, I did run out of boxes so I had to improvise temporarily.

Here are before and after pictures:

It's not perfect but it's a start and I am actually able to find some things now. The process of sorting and organizing also caused a number of very cool discoveries.

In order to be flexible (after all this is an evolving system), I used a lot of post it notes to indicate what is inside each box and also to note if there are items in need of triage. This way, as I add more material, it will be easy to rearrange the labels.

Here's a peek at the inside. My mantra has been "put like things together." I say that over and over and over. As more materials surface, that's what I do. Eventually, I will be able to do a better job of labeling after all of the like things are together and do a final sort.

The labels are not neat and orderly since this is an evolving system. The file folders and folder inserts are archival quality. The post it notes and card stock are not but for now they give the flexibility I need to add to the collection.

So, progress is being made! While the Family Papers are not in a completely perfect situation, they are in a much better way than they were a few months ago. The Archival Closet is the perfect place to store the collection as it is an interior closet, dark and in a room that actually stays at a pretty constant (and pleasant) temperature year round. Not perfect but certainly much improved.

Next up is the process of integrating the new additions to the collection.

A Digital Genealogical Disaster Plan or What's the Minimal Amount of Family HIstory to Pass On?

For a while now I've had something nagging at me. After reading Michael John Neill's Rootdig post titled Cleaning Mother's House, it's really been niggling at me; especially as it relates to digital files. Today we seem to accumulate more and more digital documents through continuing research as well as by scanning our paper documents. Don't get me wrong, we should be digitizing, backing up, and migrating our files as technology changes. But I also think about who is going to be left with these files that could be wiped out with the stroke of a few keys. If that statement made your skin crawl, it should!

If you have family members who aren't as enthusiastic about family history research as you are, you have a potential digital nightmare on your hands should you die or become incapacitated. None of us wants our hard work to be wiped out by disaster or deliberate act but that's exactly what could happen.

I've been toying with a "Digital Genealogical Disaster Plan" of sorts. It's along the same lines as a natural disaster plan: if you have 3 minutes to get out of your house, what are you going to grab? If you die or are incapacitated tomorrow, what do you want your family to know is important?

I've started a file called "1IMPORTANT-DONT THROW AWAY-THIS MEANS YOU" (the title starts with a 1 so it sorts to the top). In it go copies of only the most important genealogy and family history files. I'm hoping to make my family understand that if they don't/can't save everything, at least they need to save these items. If I use the KISS method (Keep It Simple Silly), I'm hoping to have some success.

This file folder will contain things like:

• A backup copy of my database with all of its cited information.
• A pdf "dump" of the contents of my database.
• Copies of really super critical original documents.
• One of a kind copies of ancestral photos.
• A copy of the Heirloom Book.
• Notes of interviews with family members (including notes about my own life).

The trick is in deciding what is so important that it just can't be thrown away. I'm hoping, if I keep it really, really simple, maybe this file folder will have a better chance of surviving into the future where someone will realize the valuable treasure they have on their hands.

Surely there will be more to say on this in future posts. In the meantime, let me know your thoughts too.

© 2010, copyright Michelle Goodrum