Preserving Family History Research for Family Members

I don't know why I only received a message about this month's Genealogy Blog Party on June 23, when it apparently was posted on June 6, but at least I heard about it.  It's an important topic, too:  What will happen to your research after you are gone?  How do you preserve it for other family members?

I don't have any descendants, but I do have plenty of family members:  parents, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, cousins by the dozens, extended family members.  And I've been sharing my research with as many of them as possible for several years.

Before sending everything by e-mail became the norm, every year for Christmas and Chanukah (because I come from a "mixed marriage", you know) I would mail out about fifty or so manila envelopes to all the family members I was in contact with.  Each person would receive updated information for all the family lines he (or she) was descended from.  (Yes, I tried single-handedly to keep the U.S. Postal Service in business.)  I sent family trees, narrative reports, and copies of photographs.  I found out the relatives I was sending them to shared them with other family members when some of the latter contacted me.  Hooray!  That meant more people had the information.

Nowadays I do that sharing mostly by e-mail.  I also readily share my research with cousins who find me while wandering the Web (the way my Cuban cousins found me).

A couple of years ago I had a lot of my family photos digitized.  (I still have a lot to go.)  I posted them online and shared the URL with all the cousins I knew from that side of the family.  It was a good exchange:  They could download copies of the photos, and they were able to identify most of the people in the photos for me.

I have put together several photo books through one of the popular online sites and given them as presents to family members.  Some books have focused on specific family lines, with photos of ancestors, collateral relatives, and scenes from ancestral hometowns.  Other books were about living relatives and their families.  I've also had magnets, playing cards, mugs, placemats, and shopping bags made with family photos.

I post lots of family stories and photographs on my blog, another way to share with family members.  I have downloaded the blog occasionally to archive it, but I haven't really thought about making a book out of it.  It's an interesting idea.

It seems like I'm doing quite a bit, but I know I could do more.  I'm not sure I'll ever work my way up to a book, though.  Now, if one of my relatives asks me to help supply information for a book that person wants to write, that would be great!

It's Preservation Week!

This week, April 24–30, is Preservation Week for 2016.  While the primary focus is for libraries, archives, and other formal repositories to think about the conditions and preservation needs of their collections, it is a good time for everyone to consider what they have that they would like to have last a long time.  For modern genealogists, this can easily encompass original documents, books, photographs and slides, recorded interviews, family movies, and digital media, whether converted from the previous formats or natively digital.  You might also have clothing and other physical heirlooms that can't really be digitized.

The American Library Association has a page full of resources for Preservation Week (and the whole year!).  You can find information on how to preserve your items and on disaster recovery (which I hope you never need to use).  Two free Webinars are offered this year, "Reformatting Audiotape" on April 26 and "Preserving Your Digital Life" on April 28  Also available are links to previous years' presentations, such as ""Preservation of Family Photographs", "Family Textiles", and "Disaster Preparedness", all free.

If you would like to host a Preservation Week event, there's a link to information for that.  There's even a link for preservation geared to military families!

Don't you feel motivated to go out and buy a bunch of archival boxes for your documents now?

Two Upcoming Jewish Presentations in San Francisco Bay Area

A couple of interesting things are coming up around here.  On Friday, November 2, a limited release of the film The Flat will begin in San Francisco and Berkeley.  The Flat (Hadira) is an award-winning Israeli documentary.  The synopsis sounds intriguing and describes the movie as a puzzle and a mystery:

At age 98, director Arnon Goldfinger's grandmother passed away, leaving him the task of clearing out the Tel Aviv flat that she and her husband shared for decades after immigrating from Nazi Germany in the 1930's.  Sifting through a mountain of photos, letters, files, and objects, Goldfinger undertook the complex process of making sense of the accumulated ephemera of a lifetime.  In the process, he began to uncover clues pointing to a complicated and shocking story:  a chronicle of the unexpected yet inevitable ethical ambiguities and repressed emotions that arise when everyday friendships suddenly cross enemy lines.  He follows the hints his grandparents left behind to investigate long-buried family secrets and unravel the mystery of their painful past.  The result is a moving family portrait and an insightful look at the ways different generations deal with the memory of the Holocaust.

The Flat will be playing at the Clay Theatre, 2261 Fillmore Street, San Francisco, (415) 346-1124; and at Shattuck Cinemas, 2230 Shattuck Avenue, Berkeley, (510) 644-2992.  The information I received does not specify whether the movie is subtitled or dubbed, but the promotional poster shows the title in Hebrew, so I'm guessing subtitles (which is better anyway), but I could be wrong.

The other event is a presentation at 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday, November 7, at Temple Sinai in Oakland.  In his talk "Greek Jewry and the Little Shul That Could", Jim Mavrikios will discuss the history of Greek Jewry and of Kehila Kadosha Janina, the Greek Romaniote synagogue in New York City.  Romaniote Jews were neither Ashkenazic or Sephardic.  Mavrikios has spoken about Kehila Kadosha Janina previously but has made new discoveries.  Information about Greek Jews is especially significant because most Greek Jews (more than 80%) were killed during the Holocaust.  And they'll be serving ouzo!

Genealogy Served on a Silver Platter

Ever wonder what it would feel like to just be handed all the information on your family?  You know, kind of like what happened on episodes of Who Do You Think You Are? and Finding Your Roots:  family trees, death certificates, photographs, military discharge papers, what have you.  But that never really happens, right?

Meet my friend Carol.

Over the years it has become a running joke between us.  Every so often, a family member contacts her and says, "Oh, I'd like to send you a copy of all the research I've done."  Then she receives another well put together and well documented part of her family tree, often with supporting materials.  She already has several copies of different trees and boxes of original letters and documents from both sides of her family.

She was just given another bonanza.

She received two large envelopes full of documents and a USPS Medium Flat Rate box of photo albums and loose photos.  Most of the photos are even labeled!

Among the documents are:
• eight family trees for various lines
• a typed transcript of her great-uncle interviewing her great-grandmother, including the story of how her family was instrumental in the founding of a town in Iowa
• two copies of a treatise on one of her family names
• two copies of a book about the church her ancestor established in the 1600's
• a photo of her grandfather's high school graduating class from 1917
• her grandfather's entire probate file, including correspondence

• original documents from when a relative legally changed his name
• her grandmother's college diploma and teaching certificate

• an original copy of her grandmother's death certificate from Spain (which probably would have been difficult to replace)
• original U.S. Army discharge papers
• a "whole pile" of family letters
• newspaper clippings
• church bulletins
• visitor books from funeral services

Carol's aunt (her mother's sister) collected all of this information.  She has moved to assisted living, and the aunt's daughter had to clean out the home.  This cousin talked with her brothers and her own children, but no one wanted all of the genealogical stuff.  Rather than just throw everything out, she asked around the family to find someone who did want it (hooray!).  Carol got all of this because, unlike her friend, when these items needed a home, she recognized their value.

Of course, now everything needs to be taken care of -- sorted out, put in archival boxes, separated with nonreactive paper.  And some of this is duplicates of what she already has.  But I know that Carol is up to the task.  Now if she were only more interested in genealogy ....

What was that?  No, of course I'm not jealous.  Whatever made you think so?

Eisenhower Speech about Preserving Cultural Treasures

After the end of World War II, General Dwight D. Eisenhower spoke at the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art on the importance of safeguarding cultural and historical objects, and how he instructed his troops to preserve items even while fighting the war.  An original recording of his speech was discovered in the museum's archives and has been converted to a digital format.  An AP article about the speech and the recording is available on Yahoo! News.  Eisenhower gave the speech after the museum honored him with a life fellowship.

Wonderful Record Discovery

One of our regular patrons came into the Family History Center not long ago and said she wanted to ask for some advice.  A few months ago she was in North Carolina doing research on her family.  While she was in one office, she noticed a book on the floor under a trash can (yes, you read that right) and asked the clerks what it was.  They didn't know and said she could pull it out and look at it.

It was a "cohabitation register" from after the end of the Civil War (or would that be the War of the Northern Aggression, since we're talking about North Carolina?), for black couples who had not been permitted to marry legally while they were slaves but who had what were essentially common-law marriages.  They were allowed to register their relationships and thereby make them legal and binding and legitimize their children.  Michael Hait, the well known researcher of black American genealogy, told me that most former slave states had these registrations.  He also said that several of the marriages were recorded in the Freedmen's Bureau Field Office records, but that many states had their own registers, as with this one.

There are a few hundred entries.  It's minimal information -- names, when the relationship began -- but what a find!  Thinking quickly, our patron took photos of all the pages in the book.  Unfortunately, I believe after she was finished the book was returned to its previous home on the floor.

What the patron wanted to know was what she should do with the information now that she had it.  I suggested she transcribe the names and create an alphabetical index, then submit it to RootsWeb, USGenWeb, and any genealogical and historical societies that are relevant for research in that county .  I also asked if she would give a copy of the file to our Family History Center.  Sharing information is a long-standing practice in genealogy; I've uploaded several indices to RootsWeb and also shared them with other Web sites.

A story like this makes you wonder what other records are buried and forgotten in other offices and repositories.  The next time you see a book tucked away, maybe you should ask to see it . . . .