Consider donating them to a local historical library -- you can probably put
them on a closed deposit (and retain ownership and control over who sees
what) for a number of years -- they can be a great source for social history
of ordinary -- or important -- students of history and genealogy in later
years. Transcribed letters just don t convey
the personality/mood of the writer in the same way that an original does.
Pat
----- Original Message -----
From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <LegacyUserGroup@legacyfamilytree.com>
Sent: Sunday, July 23, 2006 4:05 PM
Subject: [LegacyUG] To keep or not to keep?
Genealogy has mainly been a lark for me over the years fueled by
curiosity.
Filling in the blanks was the goal, not documenting every word. Using
Legacy
made me rethink my approach, along with communication with a cousin who
does
it the "right" way. Her records made me realize that it is important for
my
descendents to be able to find where I got my information. I am slowly
documenting what I can of my research instead of gleefully adding
names...not much fun in that! This list is being enormously helpful.
When my parents died (father in 1996 and mother in 2003), I gathered all
the
papers they had saved relating to genealogy. Happily, I had spent time
with
each of them identifying old photos and documenting stories. The papers
have
been sitting for a long time. A few months ago, I finally started
organizing
and transcribing them. I am archiving original legal and other important
documents, of course. However, there were reams of letters and notes from
family members. I have transcribed them verbatim and noted that they were
handwritten letters from so-and-so, then discarded them to save space. Now
I
am thinking that I am destroying original records and should be given 20
lashes! But, says me, these are like oral history, not solid documents
like
birth certificates and such. It seems that trying to keep every scrap of
paper is unwieldy and unnecessary.
How do you decide what to preserve?
Judie
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