Advice sought - 18th century letter conservation!

jennyblain · Post by **jennyblain** » Sat Apr 18, 2009 11:03 am

Dear all,
This is a 'friend of a friend' (cousin of a distant cousin) thing. There are some 18th century letters sent by a member of a quite prominent Edinburgh family to another family related by marriage. My contact hasn't seen them (sorry I misreported this earlier) but has had a description of the bundle they are in, falling to bits, pieces flaking off when disturbed... in such a dreadful state that they should not be touched by anybody except a conservator and the people who have them are trying to decide what to do with them.

Can anybody give advice which I could pass on? The cousin of my contact is currently in the UK for a brief visit (he lives overseas). My feeling is that there must be people possibly at Edinburgh University who would be interested and could assist with these, at least give him advice just now. There could be useful pieces of social history (as well as family history) in them.

What could people suggest? What should I feed back to them? Advice please...!
Jenny

jennyblain · Post by **jennyblain** » Sat Apr 18, 2009 11:48 am

I've changed the message above a little - the letters are still overseas. Gods how I wish I knew what was in them!
Jenny

Muriel · Post by **Muriel** » Sat Apr 18, 2009 12:11 pm

Hi Jenny

The place to start is the Conservation Register - www.conservationregister.com

From there you can search for the type of conservation & then by area.

Muriel

Post by **paddyscar** » Sat Apr 18, 2009 6:06 pm

Hi Jenny:

You mention the papers are 'overseas' so where that is, may be relevant to searching for an appropriate source of help.

http://www.cci-icc.gc.ca/services/treatment_e.shtml

http://www.cyndislist.com/preservation.htm

Also, searching on Yahoo or Google for 'conservation' (on this side of the pond anyway) tends to bring up ecoglogical conservation, so searching for some of the following terms

document conservation
conservation and restoration
archivists associations
document conservators

may bring results for something close to the document owner.

Larger centres may have archivists/conservators on staff at universities or public libraries, museums and art galleries, who may be able to help in the meantime or recommend a reliable service.

Frances