Gene Notes

Some random and some not-so-random thoughts on family history.

Tuesday, April 5, 2011

Archives Follow-up

Last week I blogged about our local archives preserving family photos (over 100 years old) with the catch that they remain in the archives. As I explained last week, my family grew up without pictures of our own parents as children, let alone ancestral pictures, so I strongly object to this proposition.

But what do you do if you have no descendants or your descendants have no interest? You bequeath them to the local archives of course.

When DH and I first moved here and I attended a meeting of the local genealogical society, one of the members had been keeping a scrapbook of obituaries and other family stuff, not just for her family but for the "locals." What a great idea. And she made sure the archives would be the recipient of her hard work. Well, this wonderful genealogist has been gone two years now. Does anyone have access to this wonderful life work? No. Because the archives needs funds? Because they moved recently? Because they haven't a clue? So this great resource goes unavailable and out of reach.

Copyright 2011, ACK for Gene Notes

4 comments:

  1. Seems like a major waste! Sad!

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  2. Thanks for keeping this ongoing issue upfront and personal.

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  3. What bugs me the most about this was the donor was instrumental in getting the county going on the archives - and donated her stuff before she died. It is sad that it is inaccessible.

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  4. See that's one of the issues for me too.

    That and that our state archives doesn't digitize all the images, charges people an arm and a leg for copies, and for the ones they do digitize, they watermark the image.

    And I am just not having a 140 year old photo watermarked...

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