Box of treasures...

baby and crumble

Hi folks,

I don't know if this is the best spot, but I'm looking for a little advice.

My Mum passed away a few years ago, and my Dad just got around t clearing out some of the stuff in presses in the house. He found 2 big boxes of old papers that my mother aunt had kept. Now he has passed them on to me, as I'm doing a PhD in oral history, so he figured I was the one to give stuff to!

I've had a very quick look through, and there are some incredible papers in there- I have an original copy of a marriage certificate dated 1882, along with the accompanying letter!

My question is- what's the best way to go about storing this stuff? I want to digitise it, but there are so many different types of documents, ranging from personal letters (which are fascinating!) to receipts and tax forms and all sorts dating back to the early 20th century.

Anyone have any advice? It's all just in a big steel box at the moment in my sitting room.

Nhead

Go to your local library or to your university library and they will help. They usually have an archivist. A handy way to digitise is to take photos with a digital camera and save it to your computer.

Nhead

baby and crumble wrote: »

Hi folks,

I don't know if this is the best spot, but I'm looking for a little advice.

My Mum passed away a few years ago, and my Dad just got around t clearing out some of the stuff in presses in the house. He found 2 big boxes of old papers that my mother aunt had kept. Now he has passed them on to me, as I'm doing a PhD in oral history, so he figured I was the one to give stuff to!

I've had a very quick look through, and there are some incredible papers in there- I have an original copy of a marriage certificate dated 1882, along with the accompanying letter!

My question is- what's the best way to go about storing this stuff? I want to digitise it, but there are so many different types of documents, ranging from personal letters (which are fascinating!) to receipts and tax forms and all sorts dating back to the early 20th century.

Anyone have any advice? It's all just in a big steel box at the moment in my sitting room.

I was thinking (always a danger) depending on the nature of some of the material you might want to donate them to a museum for example the museum in Collins Bks, Dublin had some items on display that came from military members and military members famlies.

CeannRua

There is some good advice here: http://www.naa.gov.au/services/family-historians/family-archive/index.aspx

A lot of people laminate paper but it's a bad idea - bad quality plastic + chemicals in adhesive + lack of circulating air = premature disintegration of paper. Sellotape is also a bad idea.

It's a good idea to separate newspaper items from everything else as newsprint disintegrates and discolours all it touches. Also good to separate any colour from black and white or sepia photos. Paper should be stored as 'flat' as possible as folds in paper create weak points and will normally be the first places that paper tears. Also a good idea to remove metal staples or paper clips (brass is normally okay to leave though).

Steel is clearly safer if there is a fire, flood etc but paper is normally best stored in a paper box.

baby and crumble

Thanks for all the suggestions, guys!

I think my first port of call will be my uni library, to see what they advise. I think once I had digital copies of everything (probably scanned?) that then I could look into the best way to hold them- they have been in this steel box for many many years, so I don't want to rush into anything.

I like the idea of donating some stuff to a museum, if any were interested... obviously some things are very personal to my family so I'd have to get everyone's permission- I'm really just holding these on behalf of my whole family.

It's very exciting, there are so many cool bits and pieces in there. Some things I personally don't have much of an interest in, like tax receipts and stuff, but lots of very interesting social commentary stuff. Found a newspaper article folded up of a relations death notice- from 1923! Mad altogether.