Organizing & Preserving Your Heirloom Documents [Paperback]

Katherine Scott Sturdevant (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 2002

Genealogists and non-genealogists alike inherit diaries, memoirs, letters, papers, or memorabilia from their relatives and ancestors. This book shows readers how to safely collect, preserve, and even publish some of these treasured heirlooms. Organizing and Preserving Your Heirloom Documents is filled with practical, readable guidelines, useful tips, and ideas on how to: Locate, organize, and transcribe family documents; Care for fragile, older papers; Annotate and illustrate documents; Conduct historical research; Construct a documentary volume; Publish heirloom documents

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Sturdevant, author of Bringing Your Family History to Life through Social History (2000), provides tips and guidelines tailored to amateur genealogists interested in organizing and perhaps even publishing precious family documents. After locating and identifying existing family documents, it is imperative to take necessary steps to preserve them. New documents may be created by writing memoirs, keeping a journal, or conducting oral interviews. Detailed instructions on classifying, categorizing, transcribing, editing, annotating, and illustrating a variety of sources and documents are also included. Family historians will welcome this treasure trove of practical information. Margaret Flanagan
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

About the Author

Katherine Scott Sturdevant is an historian, historical editor, and college history professor. She is the author of Bringing Your Family History to Life through Social History. Katherine lives in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

Product Details

• Paperback: 238 pages
• Publisher: Betterway Books; 1 edition (July 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 155870597X
• ISBN-13: 978-1558705975
• Product Dimensions: 10.9 x 8.4 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #239,370 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

26 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Not what I expected!!, January 1, 2003

By 

Karen of Yerington "familyhistorian89021" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Organizing & Preserving Your Heirloom Documents (Paperback)

I was hoping for a book which would give detailed instructions on how to preserve my old documents and photos. This book is more of how to write and publish a book using your old documents, diaries, photos, etc. I have no doubt that the author is brilliant, but this book did not cover what I needed to learn.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Guidelines for documentary editing and document publishing, September 8, 2002

By 

Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Organizing & Preserving Your Heirloom Documents (Paperback)

Organizing & Preserving Your Heirloom Documents by historian Katherine Scott Sturdevant is a thoroughly "user friendly" guide for the non-specialist general reader on safely organizing, collecting, and preserving the priceless personal and family papers that are so invaluable for genealogical research and the development of family histories. Readers will learn how to locate missing documents (even discover documents they didn't even know existed!); preserve and care for fragile, older papers; transcribe, annotate, proofread, and illustrate documents; conduct historical research; create new family history documents through writing and interviewing relatives; locate organizations that can help when working with family documents. Here also are guidelines for documentary editing and document publishing. Organizing & Preserving Your Heirloom Documents is an invaluable and highly recommended instructional guide for aspiring family historians as well as practicing genealogists.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Good introduction to archival genealogy, November 19, 2002

By 

Michael K. Smith (South Louisiana) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Organizing & Preserving Your Heirloom Documents (Paperback)

The author is a history professor, historical editor, and the author of _Bringing Your Family History to Life through Social History_, and her background is obvious in the subjects this book covers: Locating and preserving family archival documents, organizing a documentary project, the professional fundamentals of transcribing, editing, and annotating documents, how to dispose of documents when your project is complete (stick them in a drawer or place them in a repository for the use of others?), and publishing the resulting book. The style is smooth and engrossing (more so, admittedly, if the reader is predisposed to reading archival materials), and the advice is generally pretty good. There are interesting digressions into such subjects as dealing with your ancestors' words on topics that we today would regard as socially offensive. As in most Betterway publications, tips, notes, reminders, and warnings are emphasized throughout, and a selection of useful forms is included. The bibliography is lengthy and detailed and there's also a useful list of organizations, specialty publishers, and suppliers of archival products. However, I could wish that the index were more analytical: "Archives and archivists" includes ten rather broad locators with no subheadings, which is not very friendly to the user.