Search Results for: blog preserving newspaper clippings

Preserving Heirloom Documents

In addition to photographs, there are also several types of documents that family historians preserve. In the past, we kept documents in photo albums, the family Bible and in other books. However, with the choices in media today, we can now scan documents and make a DVD as well as save the original documents. Let’s look at what documents should be kept, how to preserve them and how to make a DVD of the documents. Copies of DVD’s can be shared with other family members. The original documents can be passed down to future generations. Heirloom Documents *Letters written to … Continue reading →

Preserving Memories

Along with the names, dates and facts on paper that come with creating our family tree and researching our ancestors are the memories that were made along the way. It is important to preserve memories as well. As a gift for each member of my family, my grandmother did something very special to preserve the memory of my grandfather, who passed away several years ago. She took his clothes and used the pieces to quilt blocks of Overall Bill. Instead of quilting the blocks together in a quilt, she put each Overall Bill on a canvas. She then had my … Continue reading →

Scrapbooking for All

If you ever doubted that scrapbooking was a hobby reserved exclusively for women, then you must have missed the episode of HGTV’s “House Hunters” where two guys were searching for a home that included the “perfect craft room,” so they could scrapbook their hearts out. Scrapbooking is no longer a passion shared only by grandmother’s with extra time on their hands or Martha Stewart wannabes looking to one-up fellow PTA moms. Scrapbooking is a hobby that does not discriminate. Rather, it invites men, women and children to exercise their creativity and preserve memories for future generations. Interestingly, Redbook magazine recently … Continue reading →

Making A Genealogy Time Capsule

One fun idea for a genealogy project is making a time capsule. For some reason, I have not heard of a lot of people doing this but it seems like a great way to have some fun while preserving your family history for future generations. Making a time capsule does not need to be very time-consuming or expensive either. To get started on your genealogy time capsule project, print out a nice copy of your pedigree chart. Next, get some current family photos and write the names of the people in the photos on the back of them. Then, have … Continue reading →

Displaying Memorabilia in a Scrapbook

Recently I scanned some old pictures of myself that I found in some scrapbooks I had created years ago. My scrapbooks include a lot of memorabilia, including newspaper clippings. The thing that stands out with the newspaper clippings is how they have yellowed. I have more scrapbooks that I still want to create and they will include newspaper clippings. But I really hate the idea of them yellowing. I happened across an article just the day other and it gave a solution to the yellowing problem. You take a capful of Milk of Magnesia and pour it into a bottle … Continue reading →

Creating Your Pedigree Chart

A pedigree chart is a list that shows your parents, grandparents and great grandparents. You can expand the chart to show as many of your great grandparents as you can determine. You may find it difficult to list ancestors beyond your great grandparents. This depends on how much information you can obtain. Start with the information that your immediate family members have. Has someone in your family already completed a pedigree chart of their own? You may find that someone else in your immediate family has done the majority of the work that you were about to do. If you … Continue reading →

Help For the Single Mother

The costs of raising our precious children are staggering. Over the years it has increased a great deal and this will only become more monumental in the years ahead. A two-income parent family is almost a necessity these days for most families. The two-parent family that has only one parent working outside the home is rare these days. You will usually find the other parent doing something anyway from home to contribute in some financial aspect when this is the case. You can then imagine how difficult it is to survive on one income as most single parents do. You … Continue reading →

Keeping Your Photos Safe: The Scientific Side

The scientific side of keeping your photographs safe goes far beyond just keeping your photos away from water, dirt, high temperatures and making sure not to leave fingerprints and scratches. Although those are important, there are some more scientific things to be aware of. Most scrapbookers have heard the word acidic and the words lignin free. Perhaps you’ve even heard of buffered. But what does all this mean to a scrapbooker and how do you take proper precautions to make sure that the supplies you are using won’t damage your photographs? The first rule is always to look for supplies … Continue reading →

Keeping Your Photos Safe: Fingerprints and Scratches

Fingerprints can quickly diminish the quality of your photographs. And although a fingerprint can be avoided or wiped away, a scratch is permanent and it is a costly situation to have repaired by a professional. These are two additional ways that your photos can be damaged and two situations that need to be addressed. When handling your photographs, you should hold the edges. Some experts recommend wearing a special type of glove, but I have found that unnecessary. As long as when holding photographs, you attempt to hold the edges, you should be alright. You can place your photos in … Continue reading →

Keeping Your Photos Safe: Extreme Temperatures

Continuing on in the Keeping Your Photos Safe series, another large contributor to photo damage was listed as temperatures and climate issues. In this regard, temperatures can play a huge part in how fast or how slowly your photographs fade. This isn’t just the case with photo storage, but in album storage as well. The sad stories I heard at a photo preservation class I taught, told about photographs ruined from basement storage, attic storage, garage storage and even storage units at non climate control companies. People have lost precious memories due to completely controllable circumstances. First, attics and basements … Continue reading →