Blog Party-How will you preserve your family history research for your descendants?

The Blog Party’s theme this month is “How will you preserve your family history research for your descendants?”  If you want to share your thoughts or read about another blogger’s preservation thoughts and ideas visit https://mydescendantsancestors.com/2017/06/the-june-genealogy-blog-party-preserving-your-family-history.html.  A big thank you to Elizabeth O’Neal for hosting the Blog Party!

Family photos in our antique frames.

Some of these items are family mementos, others are part of our collection.

One of my children has shown an interested in maintaining our family history records and artifacts.  That child will receive a little extra when I am gone.  The maintenance required for preserving family history and family artifacts is not a cheap proposition.  Archival materials needed for the collections we enjoy may be too expensive for their household.  My home is one big display of our family history.  Our antique frame collection houses our family photographs.  Frames have been archival enhanced to keep the copies safe.  Antique furniture, another thing my husband and I collect, is used to display our family mementos and collections.

Otis Clark and first wife Ora Sides in sitting on our Victorian bamboo picture easel.

Pictures and research are shared with relatives through blog posts, Facebook, email, and copies of digitalized photos and movies are given to family members.  I am slowly working my way through photographs and documents given to me by my parents and in-laws’.  I am extracting data and scanning them so that they may be saved for future generations. They are then entered into my RootsMagic program, given a citation and put in the corresponding family folder in the computer and the originals are saved archivally.  I am currently digitizing one of my mother-in-law’s recipe books for my sister-in-law’s, nieces, and nephews.

Old family German bible, photos on celloid, grandma’s buttons and more

I have started printing pictures for my nieces and nephews as they marry so that they may have a little “family history” in their homes.  I print the wedding pictures of their grandparents, great-grandparents, and great-great-grandparents.  All the photos are identified on the back.  I take the time to sit down with the bride and groom to personally share the photographs and give them I short version of the family history.

World War One souvenir pillow

My children have always been surrounded with pictures, artifacts, and stories.  While they were in school we talked about history.  We related what they were learning in school with our family – Civil War?  Pictures and records of our Union soldiers were brought out.  World War I, World War II – pictures and documents bring distant history to a personal level.

 

I think the more we share our family history and artifacts the more likely a family member or members will have the desire to maintain them.  I also make a point to share my research at family gatherings.  I enjoy researching and sharing how and where I located records.  I also share the interpretation of the information I found.  Sharing also “forces “me to write up my conclusions.  Quite often when I share my research new documents and leads come my way.