Dear Abby question.

[sheilajim]

Hi All,

While perusing this morning through the Sunday Newspaper, I came across an interesting letter in the Dear Abby collumn. Here is the letter:

Dear Abby,

I have a question that affects just about every household in America sooner or later. What do you do to dispose of unwanted family photographs?
I have albums filled with pictures of parents, siblings, aunts and uncles. I can understand saving a few - but when you are at the "end of the line," so to speak, and there is no one to pass them along to , what's an appropriate method for disposal?
Downsizing in New Jersey

Here is Abby's answer.

Dear Downsizing,
Offer them to your county or state historical society. These pictures of your relatives could provide interesting snapshots of the time in which they were taken. Your local library might also want them.

The subject is an interesting one, especially for people like us who have worked on genealogical research. What answers would you have given? What will we do with all of our 'stuff' when we go if nobody is interested in it?

[paddyscar]

Hi Sheila:

I'd have said your local library, museum or genealogical society.

When passing them on, add whatever details you may have, of who is in the picture, the event, time and place. If you don't know, the receiver may be able to give a ballpark time and place. Depending on their space, they may have to weed them out a bit, but they are still a good source of times and places.

I bought a drawing at a local church tea. When I took it out of the frame when I got home, there was a lovely portrait of a woman in what was definitely her Sunday best. I returned it to the church hoping someone would be able to rescue her.

As for clothes which are not suitable for wearing in current times, the local theatrical groups may be interested.

Frances

[Currie]

Hello Sheila,

I’d tell the silly old goat/biddy to Google. He'll/she’ll probably find hundreds of relatives who would kill for those photographs, and who would even pay for his/her funeral. He/she would have to be a bit silly to send such a letter to one of those newspaper columns. In fact, he's/she’s probably just a figment of Dear Abby’s imagination. Few, if any, of those letters are genuine, they’re just Dorothy Dixers http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorothy_Dixer

In reality everyone has someone to pass things on to. If they don’t then they are probably not trying. Better to give them to the relative you hate most than consign them to the vaults of some public institution, where they will remain, unindexed, unloved, and inaccessible to most, forever.

So much for Dear Abby, but as to what I will do with all my genealogy stuff I haven’t figured out yet. One thing for sure is that if it takes up more space than a small box it will all be history.

I once paid $5 for a small zippered Bible that was about 70 years old. Inside the zipper it’s in mint condition. It’s about 5”x4”x1” with 1200 pages, you can store it in your pocket, or even kick it around without fear of damage.

Not much use for photographs, but that sort of storage, or the closest you can get to it, would be perfect for all the genealogical data you’ve collected over the years. It would probably hold the contents of a dozen filing cabinets and wouldn’t need a computer to decipher.

All the best,
Alan

[Currie]

Here’s Dorothy Dix
http://news.google.com/archivesearch?q= ... &scoring=a

Here’s Dorothy Dixer
http://news.google.com/archivesearch?q= ... h+Archives

Alan

[sheilajim]

Hi Alan & Frances

It wasn't the letter to Dear Abby so much as the problem it raises. Passing on your research, photos, old letters, etc. is a problem that I take seriously. Not so much my research which can be duplicated, as the photos and old letters. Let's face it, pictures can get lost over the years. I don't have one picture of my grandparents or of my mother and her sisters as children. Pictures were taken but somehow got lost. What i wouldn't give to have some of these photos now! I even have to admit to being guilty of losing photos when I was younger and even not that long ago too. I lost a whole album of precious old pictures when I moved in 1998. I didn't realize it until too late. Those pictures are gone forever as my sister had very few of these old pics.

What I would like to do is leave copies of pics and writings to some local history society and leave other copies to relatives. Hopefully this way some of them will survive for future interested generations.

I got very lucky when I was contacted by schoolmate from Classmates.com. She had a photo of my 3rd Grade class! She sent me a copy. It was wonderful to see the faces of my old classmates and the memories that the photo brought back.