Updated 9/28/2021
Every family has a history keeper.
Sometimes it’s the eldest daughter or the most responsible aunt and sometimes it’s simply the person with the biggest house. But in every family throughout the centuries, the task of keeping the family history alive usually falls to one person.
It doesn’t even matter if that person is particularly good at it. Whether they use a basement or an attic, there’s always one person whose home is piled with photo albums, birth certificates, marriage certificates, newspaper clippings and Civil War muskets.
And for centuries this made sense. Families didn’t move a lot, and photos and keepsakes – well it was so difficult to make copies of them or move them without them falling to pieces – that it just made sense to leave them be, until one of the kids who was “interested in those things”, came by to investigate where they came from.
And history wasn’t always relegated to photos and muskets. It was also passed down from generation to generation through stories and legends by people who had heard them so many times, they could simply sit down next to a fire and regale everyone with Uncle Frank’s escapades during the war or the time Aunt Sophie saved her entire family from ruin.
But in last few decades all of that has changed. Television and the internet have taken the place of listening to our elders share their stories. In fact those elders are probably too busy to do it. They’re all off starting a blog or out volunteering in the community. Family history now consists of fading ten year old video tapes or Facebook photos of last month’s birthday bash.
Which is probably the reason services like Ancestry.com are flourishing. We all want to know where we came from. Not just the last two generations but decades and centuries ago. And with places like Ancestry.com linking us with a past that makes our own history spring to life, genealogy is suddenly cool again.
And that leads us right back to the history keepers. Back in the recesses of those attics and basements are pieces of our history – and every day they’re falling to pieces. The photos are curling and yellowing. The documents are fading, the newspapers and Family Bibles are turning to pulp and the christening outfit is being consumed by moths.
I can’t tell you how many times we’ve heard the same thing. “Aunt Sadie had a huge house so she kept all the family albums. We never thought about whether they were safe or not, until the night her house burned down or her basement flooded. And then suddenly, two hundred years of history was a soggy, unsalvageable mass of lumpy paper.”
So who is the best person to be the keeper of the history in your family? There’s only one logical answer to that question.
Everyone! It’s time for every person in every family to start sharing the load and sharing the history.
Don’t just appoint one family member to do it. It’s not practical and it’s certainly not fair. What about getting together and making a day of it? Gather all of the family photos from everyone homes and have a scanning party. You can share memories while you scan and then when you’re done, each person gets a copy of all of the photos on a nicely labeled DVD. Do the same thing with the family videos or Super8 movies. One group can be scanning the photographs and archiving them, while another group transfers the videos and films onto DVDs.
Have you ever thought of doing an oral history of your family? Years ago, families didn’t have sound on their 8 mm or Super8 movies, and never had the chance to hear what their great or great-great grandparents sounded like. It’s such an honor and such an opportunity to be able to capture all of the people we love on video now so that we can share them with generations to come. Not only does it bring history to life for everyone, but it shows the entire journey of who we are as a family and how that has made us the individuals we are today.
When Spike Lee was on NBC’s “Who Do You Think You Are,” he told a touching story about his grandmother. Evidently she was a wonderful storyteller and lived way into her nineties. Even though he’s a filmmaker and had all of the equipment right there at his fingertips, he just never got around to getting her or her stories on film. And then she passed away, and he lost that opportunity.
He had tears in his eyes when he told the story on the show, and today, not getting her on film is one of his biggest regrets. Maybe he just didn’t want to think that some time she might no longer be with them. So take Spike Lee’s advice. Grab a video camera and get those relatives and their stories on video for posterity. Then anytime you or your children want to hear Grandma or Great-Grandpa and visit with them for a bit, all you have to do is pop in the video and they and their stories will spring to life.
If you have a people in your family who are great at research, consider getting a membership for Ancestry.com and putting them hot on the trail of your forefathers and mothers. If you’ve never been out there, you’d be amazed the treasures you can find, like photos, censuses, war records and steamship records. In fact, we found out that we’re actually related to an amazing woman who led the Red Cross into the 20th Century!
But when you unearth all that information on Ancestry.com, save each and every piece. Archive it on your own computer and then save it to your family tree on Ancestry.com, and give access to that tree and documents to your family so THEY can save the document and tree on their own computers. This way each member of your family will have an entire history for each generation to come, without relying on the water-tightness of Aunt Sophie’s basement, or the crash resistance of one person’s computer hard drive.
We were discussing ways to keep family history and vital documents save with Steve Leveen, founder of Levenger, who is a great fan of fine books and libraries. He told us that, people in library circles have an acronym that helps them preserve important documents. It’s LOCKSS –Lots of Copies Keep Stuff Safe. The Library at Alexandria burned three times – believe it or not, one of those times was on purpose! But it still survived, because they learned not to keep everything in a centralized location. Centralizing things in one place makes them susceptible to damage.
And what if the relative who is currently the keeper of the history won’t let you take the family photos home to scan them? Not to worry. Grab a portable wand scanner, like the one we like best, the VuPoint Hand Scanner. They’re small, rechargeable and can scan any flat surface, including a photo right in the frame. Just gather a couple of friendly family members, knock on Aunt Sophie’s door, whip out your scanner and start capturing all that family history. Once she sees her prized photos being downloaded to your laptop, where they’ll be safe for years to come, she’ll come around. And if she doesn’t? Well, you’ve got your digital copies of her photos, along with a batch of her delicious cookies for the trip home.
Take Action!
1. First, Grab What You Have
Grab a pencil and paper and jot down the types of family history documentation you currently have in your home.
Here are a few ideas to get you started:
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Family Photos
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Family Tree
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Relatives’ Birth/Marriage/Death Certificates
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Land Titles/Deeds
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Family History Documents
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Census Records
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Relatives’ Videos/Interviews/Oral Histories on tape
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Anything else related to the history of your family
Using the list you just compiled, locate and gather all of those documents. If necessary, divide them into separate files for each family surname.
2. Next Scan & Archive
Are any of the family history documents or photos you located already on computer? If so, copy the documents (leaving the originals where they are on your computer) to a new folder called Family History Backup.
Scan all of the paper documents you gathered at 300dpi or higher and save them to your computer. When you’re finished, make a copy of those documents and put them in your Family History Backup folder.
If you don’t have a computer, see if you can find someone to scan and save the documents for you. If that’s not possible, then have high quality copies made at your local copy shop.
3. The Family Tree
If you want to take your family history up a notch – or if you’re the historian in your family – we suggest using Ancestry.com or their Family Tree Maker software to create your own Family Tree.
If you haven’t been on Ancestry.com yet, you’ll be amazed at the amount of information, photos, historical documents and census data that’s waiting for you. And once you’ve created your family’s tree you can share all of your information with other family members.
4. Finding The Other Pieces To The Puzzle
Once you begin preserving your family history, you might just have to go and grab pieces of it from grandmas, grandpas, aunts, uncles and anyone else you can find who has boxes of it in their attic or basement. Those boxes were fine when no one ever moved and historical documents could only be saved in boxes tied up with ribbon. But now that we can actually preserve documents either by storing them in acid free containers, albums or scanning them, there is no longer any reason to make Great Aunt Sophie the sole preservationist in the family.
Not only is it unfair to Aunt Sophie to have all of that pressure, but if something should happen to her home, the memories of an entire family will disappear. That actually happened to one side of our family. Just two weeks before we located the aunt who was the keeper of the records, her basement, bone dry for thirty years, suddenly flooded from a winter storm and along with it went all traces of the Sullivan family photos and history.
5. Getting The Real Story – On Video
Are there people in your family that you want your grandchildren and great grandchildren to meet years from now? Don’t just rely on a photo or someone’s memory to tell the story. Put them on video.
Fire up the video camera and get your favorite relatives to tell their favorite stories or prepare the family’s favorite cake or pie on camera. Then save the videos on DVD in multiple locations to preserve another piece of your family’s memories.
6. Fixing Those Faded Photos
One last bit of advice. Once you have all of your photos or documents scanned and saved, look through and find any that are damaged, faded or yellowed. There are so many great photo software programs out there, like Adobe Photoshop Elements. But one scanner stands out among all the others in the marketplace, for color correction, right in the scanner.
It’s the Epson Perfection line of scanners, with Epson’s Easy Photo Fix software. Do you have any of those photos from the seventies and eighties that ended up a muddled brown-orange mess? This is the only easy solution we have found to restoring then back to their natural color. All you have to do is use the Auto Fix setting on the scanner and then scan your seventies photos. The scanner corrects the color while it scans. Truly amazing! Even if you have to touch them up a bit with Photoshop Elements afterwards, using the Epson scanner will save you hours if not days of manual color correction, that probably wouldn’t come out have as great as they do on the scanner.
High Tech Toys
Here are some of our favorite high-tech tools and toys to help you get all of your favorite photos, music, home videos, movies – and anything else that can be stored digitally – backed up, stored and accessible. Wherever you are. Whatever is going on around you. 24/7.
Adobe Photoshop Elements 2020
Anker PowerCore 5000 Portable Charger
Axis Self-Powered Safety Hub
Canon PowerShot Wi-Fi Enabled ELPH 190 Digital Camera
ClearClick Video to Digital Converter
Epson Perfection V600 Photo, Film, & Document Scanner
ez Share WiFi SD Card
Fireproof Document Bags
Sentry Fireproof/Waterproof Lateral File Cabinet
SentrySafe Fireproof and Waterproof Safe
HP Photo Printer All-in-One Wireless Envy 7120
ION Audio Premier LP Turntable Vinyl Record Player
Kodak P570 Personal Photo Scanner
Magnavox VHS to DVD Combo Recorder
Reshow Cassette Player MP3 Converter
Rocketbook Smart Reusable Notebook
SanDisk 32GB Connect Wireless Stick Flash Drive
SanDisk 32GB iXpand Flash Drive for iPhone and iPad
Sony 4K HD Video Camcorder
Sony HX400V Compact Digital Camera
VuPoint Handheld Magic Wand Portable Scanner
The COVID pandemic has created a new list of toys that people can’t do without — including some very cool high-tech solutions to unexpected challenges. Like staying healthy and working from home! Here are some of our favorites.
Cubii Pro Seated Under Desk Elliptical Machine
I’m Smiling On The Inside Face Masks
iHealth No-Touch Forehead Thermometer
iProvèn Wrist Blood Pressure Monitor
KODAK Luma 150 Pocket Projector
No-Touch Door Opener, Button Pusher Tool
Owlet Smart Sock 2 Baby Monitor
PhoneSoap 3 UV Smartphone Sanitizer
Sony Tie-Clip-Style Omnidirectional Microphone
Total Gym APEX G5 Total Body Strength Training
Zacurate Fingertip Pulse Oximeter
For a book’s worth of tips and tools on getting your stuff organized, backed up and together, pick up a copy of our books “Back It Up” and “Write It Down” in paperback or via instant download.
Have Fun Getting Your Stuff Together!
Keep Everything You Love Safe | The Book Inspired By The Blog
Keep Everything You Love Safe, is filled with quick, easy, 5 minute steps you can take right now, to get everything that’s important to you organized, safe, sound and accessible. Each section covers a different area, from backing up and fixing family photos, home movies and music, to vital documents, medical and financial information and even getting your digital life in order. Paperback Or Instant Download
Back It Up
I don’t know about you, but the most important keepsakes in our house are our old family photos, followed closely by our home movies and music. But grabbing piles of photo albums and all your picture frames off the walls is pretty hard to do when you’re running out the door! With Back It Up, you’ll learn quick, easy steps to back up your print/digital photos, home movies, music (including vinyl & cassettes) and save them in multiple, disaster proof locations. Paperback Or Instant Download
Get Your Stuff Together 
I am recently widowed and wanting to devote a major portion of my life to geneology work for my late husbands family. He is the only member and there is a lot to do.
I am in the pprocess of moving to a town home & want to dedicate the 2nd bedroom for this purpose. I’m looking for ideas of a really great way to set it up so I can be VERY organized.
I will be using the computer and am planning to get your book for that but, I have an accumulation of 50 years of pictures and written records I am still trying to organize. If you have any ideas or something on the web, i would so appreciate it !!!!
Sincerely yours,
JoAnne Brooks
Hi JoAnne,
Here are a few ideas for you.
The most important part of organizing an effort like this – and it is an effort – is to keep all of the details that go together, together. That sounds a lot easier than it is.
If it was us, we would start by separating the information into two different stacks. The first stack is for all of the documentation excluding photographs. The second is for photos. The reason for this is simple. First you’ll have to scan all of the photos to save them to your computer. The second, is that photos need to be stored differently than documents so you might as well treat them differently from the start.
Next you’ll have some sorting to do. The problem with most families is that they often have a lot of different surnames. It’s easiest with genealogical information to break up your documents and photos into one stack for each surname. That way, you’re only dealing with one family and one set of family members at a time. If you have more than three or four surnames, you’ll want to use something large with flat surfaces and built in separations – like an empty bookcase with shelves that are broken up into smaller squares. Put a sign on each section for each of the last names and use that to sort the documents into families. When you’ve sorted them out, put the documents to the side and sort the photos – at least those of family members that are already identified – the same way.
Once you have everything broken down into families, the quickest and easiest way we can think of to house the documents are A to Z accordion files. If you can find ones that are photo safe and acid free, even better. Put a surname on the front of each accordion file and file the documents for that family alphabetically by first name or if it’s easier for you, by relationship, like mother, grandmother, brother. Personally I think name is more efficient.
If the files are acid free and photo safe, grab a second file (or if the family is small enough use the same one) and sort the photos by name as well. You can use a post it note on the back of each to identify the person without harming th photo. If you can’t find an acid free/photo safe accordion file, simply use a photo box with those qualities and an A to Z index for the photos instead. Your goal with the photos is to keep from causing any more damage or discoloration to them during this process.
The other reason we’re suggesting separating the documents from the photos is that you won’t necessarily want to scan each document. Once the photos and scannable documents are in your computer, make sure that you use the same file names to name them into folders for each surname. That way you’ll be able to find what you’re looking for easily. It really doesn’t matter how you name them, as much as it matters that you do it consistently the same way all the way through the process.
If you find any non-paper keepsakes place them in close-able plastic pocket folders to keep them together, protected and organized. Simply place an index card in there with the item(s) with a list of that folder’s contents along with the surname of the family to whom it belongs.
Once you’re organized and ready to research, you might want to bring in a little help. If there isn’t anyone on your side of the family who wants to help, check out your local colleges or genealogy groups to see if anyone might want to help you scan your photos or get you started with Ancestry.com or inputting what you’ve found so far into genealogy software.
When you begin finding family members on your husband’s family tree, you might even find some distant relatives who are still alive with information about their parts of his family. In our own family we have found many cousins from the tree on Ancestry.com who have been able to fill in large parts of what we thought was a small, limited family. Don’t be afraid to reach out to other members via email to say hello or see if they’d like to trade information.
Hope that helps! Let me know how it goes. Best, Laura