"Within every home is a treasure trove of information. Unfortunately, many irreplaceable documents that help tell individual stories, and the stories of our communities, are deteriorating among our personal belongings." With that warning in mind, this book focuses on the care of personal papers, photographs, and memorabilia found in the typical home. Written for individuals who hope to protect family history, this book provides everything an unofficial archivist needs to ensure materials that connect us with our past are available for future generations. Its goal is to help you create and maintain a valuable family and community resource of recorded information about your world from the unique point of view of you and your loved ones. The Unofficial Family Archivist is organized into eight sections that discuss preservation; creating and identifying materials that represent you; how to properly organize, preserve, and describe these items; how to prepare them to pass on to future generations. This book provides information to guide you so you may enjoy your materials, easily access them, feel comfortable that they will last for a long time and be treasured by your descendants

"Not just a gift. It's history in the making. Family history is important. Photos, videos, aged documents, and cherished papers--these are the memories that you want to save. And they need a better home than a cardboard box. Creating Family Archives is a book written by an archivist for you, your family, and friends, taking you step-by-step through the process of arranging and preserving your own family archives. It's the first book of its kind offered to the public by the Society of American Archivists. Gathering up the boxes of photos and years of video is a big job. But this fascinating and instructional book will make it easier and, in the end, much better"--

Every family collects a lifetime of personal papers and photographs that tell the stories of their loved ones. The caretakers of these precious holdings inherit boxes overflowing with memories but are puzzled on how to even start to maintain or preserve their heritage. This book simplifies the principles and practices of professional archivists and curators so that anyone with a passion for their personal and familial history can apply these techniques to their family treasures. Based on archival practice, the book offers step-by-step advice that is easy, efficient, and economical. After reading this book, you should have a better understanding of how to organize your irreplaceable documents and preserve your rich family histories for future generations.

Master the world's #1 genealogy website and discover the secrets to Ancestry.com success! This book, updated in 2016 to include the most recent changes to the site, will help you get the most out of your Ancestry.com subscription by showing you how to take advantage of all the world's biggest genealogy website has to offer--and how to find answers to your family tree questions within its 14 billion records, 60 million family tree and 32,000 databases. What you'll learn: • Step-by-step strategies for structuring your searches to find what you're looking for faster • How to drill down to specific records, time periods and topics using the card catalog • Details on each of Ancestry.com's historical record collections, including what you can expect to find in them--and when you need to look elsewhere • Tips for creating and managing your family tree on Ancestry.com, as well as connecting your tree to others on the site • Timesaving tricks to maximize your Ancestry.com Hints (the "shaky leaf"), Tree Sync with Family Tree Maker, and the Ancestry.com mobile app Each chapter includes step-by-step examples with illustrations to show you exactly how to apply the techniques to your genealogy. Whether you've just begun dabbling in family history or you're a longtime Ancestry.com subscriber, this book will turn you into an Ancestry.com power user!

"Not just a gift. It's history in the making. Family history is important. Photos, videos, aged documents, and cherished papers--these are the memories that you want to save. And they need a better home than a cardboard box. Creating Family Archives is a book written by an archivist for you, your family, and friends, taking you step-by-step through the process of arranging and preserving your own family archives. It's the first book of its kind offered to the public by the Society of American Archivists. Gathering up the boxes of photos and years of video is a big job. But this fascinating and instructional book will make it easier and, in the end, much better"--

Do you have boxes of old letters, photographs, keepsakes, and family heirlooms that you'd love to save for future generations? Imagine how thrilled your descendants will be a hundred years from now to discover what their ancestors' lives were like and the challenges they overcame during the Depression, the Civil Rights Movement, the Gulf War, September 11, the worldwide pandemic, and other historical events. Today's technology gives you the opportunity to preserve priceless memorabilia and add your story to the mix. Archival best practices are vital to prevent decay and destruction of your family's treasures. In "Secrets from the Stacks," expert archivist Rhonda Chadwick guides you step-by-step on how to organize collections both small and large, properly store and archive photographs, preserve textiles and heirlooms crafted of metal and other materials, and digitize photos, emails, films, audio, and video. With warmth and humor, she reveals the methods archivists use to organize a family legacy, from preserving 19th-century daguerreotypes to 2!81-century photos on your cellphone. You'll learn how to store and ensure access to and retrieval of your social media accounts and digital assets, create memory books, audio and video oral histories with family members, and more. Finally, Chadwick teaches you how to prevent damage or loss of family heirlooms from natural disasters, fire, and theft. Your cherished family stories and memories are important and don't have to die when you do. Recording and preserving your family history is not just a gift for your relatives today; it gives future generations the opportunity to connect with the past and gain a deeper understanding of their own sense of self.