Moving...And How it Affects Your Genealogy

Well, come Sunday, I will be moving a town over to another apartment. In this process, I have been cleaning out all the clutter in my room and going through the mass amounts of stuff that I have.

As I was doing this, I began to find more old letters, pictures, and newspaper clippings in a box stuffed in a cabinet in the hall. I began looking through them and I was stunned as I realized that I didn't even know I had them! (And the dangerous part is - they weren't in archival safe boxes!)

My packing instantly stopped as I began to search through the gigantic box of information. I never even knew it was in my house...and yet, here I was staring at old letter my grandmother wrote to her father, hand drawn Christmas cards, and pages from old family albums that I didn't know existed.

Then I came into a huge brick wall...What am I going to do with all of this stuff? The pile I have of the things I need to scan is already to the ceiling - and I am beginning to wonder when I am going to have the time to scan, label, and organize all of it. I now have A LOT more archival safe boxes to buy come November when my grant money gets in...(Yes, I spend my school grant money on genealogy - don't tell!)

I love being the family historian, I really do. I love getting all the stories and going on the hunt to find out more. Trust me, I realize how incredibly lucky I am to have all of this stuff...but please - cut a girl some slack! Scanning is not the most fun part of genealogy!


Oh well, I just thought I'd give you a quick update on that, and explain that things might be slow on here for a week or so. I apologize for that, and trust me, I'd rather be writing than packing!

When I get back online, I have some wonderful things to show you and some suggestions to share with you about scanning your pictures and such!

Update: Abba-Dad made a create comment with a good question. I'll answer it in detail on another post, but I'll give you the Cliff Notes version right now.
The question was: "What kind of archival safe boxes do you use? I don't even know where to look for some and have no clue what's good and what's crap."
My answer: Well, I use boxes that specifically say "Archival Safe" on them and if it has plastic, I make sure that it is PVC-free. I know that there are a bunch of websites online where you can buy them, but I get mine from a scrapbooking store near my house. Ask someone at a craft store - especially one with a focus on scrapbooking or framing because they should be able to lead you into the right direction.