riage certificates, residency information and a multitude of other‘ legal’ documentation. Some of these obviously must be kept in a safe and secure location with scanned copies being used for reference rather than archiving, but before you discard any of this paperwork, check with your home country regulations. All countries have different requirements to retain original documents so take specialist advice on this matter.
2Why should you consider archiving?
For me, three things: space, condition and technology. Space is a top issue. Over my 30 years of parenting I accumulated thousands of pieces of paper – literally! Physical storage space was becoming an issue and perhaps more importantly I couldn’ t find anything when I needed it.
gy for many of us these are new concepts. The use of cloud storage technology such as Dropbox, or many other cloud storage sites available, enables you to scan paperwork and upload photos and videos to a secure location accessible via your smart phone, iPad or laptop … and depending how brave you are, you can throw away the originals reducing space and avoiding future quality and deterioration issues. Easy!
3Getting started – get organised
If you accept the challenge to archive your family history also accept it will take time, effort and working space. First gather all the different materials into one place. At this stage, don’ t dwell or get side-tracked on individual items, you’ ll have the opportunity to review them in more detail later, for now just think about
Top Scanning Tips
Name your scanned files as you go along. Most scanned file names are a series of numbers and letters and without proper naming the files will again be difficult to find, or search electronically.
Check the resolution. Low resolution scanning is fine for some general items( like 1986 bus tickets) and for sharing documents electronically but a precious letter or old family photos may benefit from high resolution scanning.
Secondly, unless you actively consider the items, and the conditions they are stored in, you may find that their condition has deteriorated considerably. Old photos are prone to fading due to their chemical composition and remember, old tape film used in Betamax videos, so popular 20 years ago to record the most precious of memories, are more fragile than today’ s DVDs and much more vulnerable to accidental damage and Doha’ s humidity!
Thirdly, technology. While it seems millennials were born with an intuitive understanding of iPads and cloud technoloputting together individual collections of related things. Have boxes ready for photos and negatives, videos and a third for paperwork. Be realistic about the amount of time and space this will take as you sift through everything.
Part of getting organised is to determine how you will store the items once they are ready for archiving. I prefer a three phase approach: cloud storage – easy to access, free or low cost, I see cloud storage as one of my primary storage methods; hard drive – easy to use, low cost and it enables me to view my archives without internet access – however remember like
DVDs, hard drives have a shelf life; finally I share all our archives with my husband who loads them on our family cloud account. Overkill perhaps but remember the hoarding DNA issue I mentioned earlier.
4Photos – a moment in time
A recent study by the Association of British Insurers noted that in a home fire, the second most popular item people would save( after family and pets obviously) was their photos. Coming from a pre-digital era I understand this statistic. Pre-digital photos were taken with a roll of film,
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