In Your Own Backyard # 5- Preserving family history
Jennifer Ritter and Alyce LaBry
Center for Cultural & Eco Tourism
To document family history first get stuff—go out and talk to family members, record the conservations, take stock of what exist. Go to those family members who hold the memories of the family and have preserved it and ask them to share the memories. If there are papers, acid free boxes for storage will be necessary, along with a flat bed scanner and a program to create electronic files. If there are photographs, slides or videotapes you need to make an assessment of their condition and how to best preserve them. It is best to get the family member comfortable with talking to you. Once you determine who to talk to and the condition of material that exist you can begin to set up your equipment and the process you will use to collect the information. Bring pencil and paper to jot down notes and adequate equipment for the interview. Always ask the person to state their name, when they were born, where they were born, who were the parents and that they agree to the interview. Take into account the condition of the material/artifacts being discussed.
Conservation of the item is important. Be aware that the item it is not exposed to light, temperature extremes, humidity and pest. The item should be stored in acid free boxes in a dark dry place. Once stored keep check on it. Purchase acid free photo albums to store pictures and mount them with acid free photo corners. Store slides and negatives in slide pages.
Discussion and demonstration continued showing various pieces of equipment used by the Center.
To get to the Center’s data it is easier to go to the Center’s website, select the archives tab and access it from there. The catalog is a work in progress.
(39:43): There are several ways to share collected material with the family—a slide show or perhaps a small book (there are on-line sites that can be used) or a Microsoft word document. Make CD’S of audio collected.
(42:41): Jennifer: Your family history is important. It is worth documenting. It is worth digging deeper because that contributes to the collective knowledge of what we have, knowledge of the area, of the people, of our culture, of our ethnicity, of our language everything that we are comes from who we were. If you don’ know what to do with the material after you have collected it, come to the Center and we will be glad to take it off your hands and add to our collection.