Old documents, family photo's *unmarked mostly*, yearbooks, etc.

[ToomuchStuff]

What do you have, what do you keep and why?

[Simplemind]

Everything because my memory is horrible. Seriously, I have few memories from the past and it helps me remember. I have always been the family historian with the pen and the camera.

[lessisbest]

I, too, am the family historian and have been working on our family genealogy since the 1980's, so I'm the go-to person when the family needs information, and they are also starting to give me family "stuff", or copies of it now that it is so easy (and cheap) to copy things, so I have large files I've accumulated over the years. My 1st cousin just brought me a huge amount of pictures that were his mother's (my aunt), and I'm probably the only person left who could identify them because I have done the research. I've also been the archivist at our local genealogical society, so I have taken classes on preservation.

I was at work one day when a man started chatting and mentioned how he had just tossed all the family photos because he didn't know who they were. I asked him if he would donate them to the genealogical society? He said sure, if someone came and got them. Which we did. We were able to identify many of the people in his collection, and were able to store the pictures for future use because they were a prominent family here in the area historically.

Because some kind soul purchased family papers from a farm auction and donated them to the local genealogical society, I was able to hold in my hand a family Bible for my father's side of the family (his great-grand father and several generations back) that includes birth, death, and marriage records for my own family dating back to the 1700's. This was how I found a Civil War Veteran, War of 1812 Veteran, and the War of Independence Veteran - none of which anyone of the family knew about.

[ctg492]

A few, very few. The few I have I wonder why other than I would think I was cold if I tossed them. I realized a few years ago that I do not like looking back and that was when the photo thing happened with me. Maybe someday that will change who knows. I only have a few photos on my phone too. I will snap a pic and send it to someone, then delete it. It is just for the moment.

Mom had the most beautiful hours spent on photo albums, she loved going through them often and smiling. When someone passed away she used to toss pictures of that person. I thought it was strange, but get it now.

[Chicken lady]

Everything. And the duplicates. I'm a hoarder. But my mom and I recently made pact to throw out all the negatives, because really, nobody is going to look for a negative to make a copy of an old snapshot. They'll scan it.

My mom also called me because she couldn't figure out what to do with all the extra (school, activity, duplicate) pictures of my brother and me. (somebody might want them some day!) I told her to make six envelopes (the grandchildren) put one dated photo of each of us each year in each envelope, write the kids' names on them, put them in a drawer somewhere, and throw the leftovers away. She did. So in 20 or 30 years we can hand them to the kids and the kids can throw them away. But mom feels better and they take up less space.

[catherine]

Everything. I am not a hoarder, but I am a paper packrat. I have my old yearbooks--I even have my stepfather's old yearbook, and he died 20 years ago. I have every letter written to me, I have years and years worth of DayTimers, I have personal journals going back to 1964. I have the kids' school papers (although I did get rid of the ones that had no "personality" like math tests and stuff like that). I have the deed on the summer cottage my great-aunt and uncle built in 1914. I have all the Western Unions that people sent my great uncle when he got appointed to the Connecticut Superior Court.

I also have a lot of old photographs. I actually did purge last year, to get rid of the REALLY bad shots (I had never thrown out even the mistakes, like when you aim the camera at the floor.. ) I labeled the photos and organized them into groups, so that was a step in the right direction, but really, I'm ridiculous. Maybe I should have worked at a presidential library or something, because I just feel like keeping this stuff is keeping history and it all MIGHT be important 100 years from now.

[Miss Cellane]

What do I have? I have a couple of hundred old photos that my parents took of my and my siblings, to send to my grandparents. Dad was military and we rarely saw the GPs, but when Grandma died, we found a box with apparently every photo Mom ever sent her. Thankfully, all of them are labeled with date, place and people.

I have copies of a few older photos--my grandparents' wedding photo, a picture of my grandmother and her five sons. Dad found the photos and had copies made for us all.

One of my brothers has all Dad's medals and the paperwork that goes with them. He risked his life a lot more than Mom or us kids knew about. Same brother also has the flags from Dad's funeral, as well as those of both grandfathers.

My sister has the diary Mom kept for the year before and after their wedding.

A cousin on my Mom's side had a little tea a few years back, and invited all the older relatives. We spent an afternoon sitting around the dining table, identifying as many of the people as we could in all the old photos that everyone brought. Hidden family stories came out. The older aunts switched from tea to gin. More scandals were revealed--things that people would not blink at today. Much laughter ensued and a good time was had by all.

After his parents died, my dad took all the papers from their house. He put together notebooks with copies of the more interesting papers, so I have copies of things like Grandpa's birth certificate, the diary Grandma kept when she was eight, newspaper clippings from their wedding, diplomas, letters they wrote home to their parents, things like that. It has come in surprisingly useful when nieces and nephews need to to family trees or the like for school. And it's just plain interesting. Who knew that my lovely, ever gracious, always calm grandmother used to be punished regularly for sitting in the rocking chair when a grown-up wanted to sit in it?