This week's prompt for 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks 2024 is Preserve. What do I preserve? I preserve paper. I am from the 20th Century; I spent the first 53 years of my life in the 20th Century. I believe in paper. Paper is solid, paper exists, paper can be preserved with archival materials and methods, which I learned in my scrapbooking hobby. Paper doesn't get evaporated in a computer crash. Yes, it can be damaged by fire, or water, or insects. But properly preserved and protected, it can last for decades.
I do have a lot of my paper documents digitized; I am really quite belt-and-suspenders. But when someone suggests that I digitize everything and toss the paper away, I cringe, my skin crawls, and I stand up and say, "No!"
My dilemma is that my photos for the past couple decades are digital. I have, from time to time, sent some of my digital photos to Shutterfly to be printed. I did that a lot when I was scrapbooking, something I hope someday to get back to. I want at least to finish the ones I had to box away when other matters had to take precedence. But paper uber alles!
Some preservation I have done has been in storytelling, especially to our grandson who is now 19 and in college. He has enjoyed tales my husband and I have told him of our experiences in the Coast Guard. He has enjoyed stories of ancestors' antics. I should record some of these stories.
Right now, I am engaged in digitizing a whale of a lot of photos and other documents from my husband's family, a request made by our nephew Paul, who visited recently. He lives in Australia, and was returning there with some items he retrieved from storage after he left his last U.S. dwelling. However, he had second thoughts about shipping the photos to Australia in a box with the other items. He has left them here for me to scan. On a future visit, he will claim his paper photos. But I will have my own copy of this digital trove of my husband's family photos and documents to add to my genealogical information on his family. And I can send some of my digital copies of these to Shutterfly, too.
Finally, a significant part of my ways of preservation involve photos and paper documents and storytelling. These all find their way into the scrapbooks I have made and those I am hoping to complete when things settle down for us. In these scrapbooks, preservation is the chief goal, and paper is king.
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