Oh Dear!

The good news about doing genealogy, when records survive the owner, the records are then turned over to you. . .the bad news is when records survive the owner, and the records are turned over to you!

When my mother-in-law passed away and the family sorted through items, I was entrusted with many photographs and “the genealogy”.  It was agreed that I would scan the photographs and share them.  

Sharing them was the catch…how was I going to share them with each family member?  Then I realized the easiness and my current knowledge of blogging and realized that is the perfect way to share the photographs.  It was important to keep the blog private because I was going to share pictures and information about living people.  In addition to adding the photographs, I would be able to add documents and other family history information that would be important to the family.     

Another great thing about the blog is that I can ask family members for help in identifying people in photographs, or ask them to tell the stories that go along with the photographs.  Family members can get online and add any information to the photographs at their own convenience and not just when we are together.

In all, I had 11 boxes to go through; boxes of papers, photographs, letters, documents, family group sheets, obituaries, family histories and other prized keepsakes!  There were other items including postcards, maps, old phone books, poetry and even sheet music.  

The first step was to sort and separate. I sorted through one box at a time.  I tossed all manila envelopes, blank papers and carefully removed photographs from those old albums with the black acid paper.   

I decided whether each item was genealogy or a photograph.

Then I separated into the following piles:

Genealogy: 

general

mother-in-laws papers and items

father-in-laws papers and items

husbands papers and items

misc. and need to go through and examine later

Photographs:

mother-in-law & father-in-law and children

father-in-laws family

mother-in-law family

unknown people

Of course there are those miscellaneous items and they all together went into the miscellaneous pile!   

I labeled each pile with an index card and eventually placed the piles into boxes and these wonderful plastic sorting bins I found at Wal-Mart.  The ID bins I found were perfect; they were larger than a 8.5 x 11 paper, were plenty deep and best of all they had a place to write on the outside of the box.  If you use a dry-erase marker you can erase and write again over and over as projects change.  I purchased the bins for under $4.  I purchased 6 of them since I can see a future use for these bins in other family history and personal organizing projects.  

I didn’t try and figure out if obituaries, funeral programs or letters were for family or friends; I can do that when I scan and add to my genealogy program.  I didn’t read anything—which was so painfully difficult for me—but stayed focused on sorting box after box.  

Then I began the scanning. . .and scanned. . .and scanned. . .and scanned. . .and scanned. . .and scanned. . .and scanned. . .and repeat!!!

Most importantly isn’t necessarily the order of the process, but that I am doing it. It also gives me an opportunity to realize what I have to do in the future with my own photographs, thank goodness all my genealogy is already organized!