I am involved in a project to give my genealogy research a jumpstart. I realized that I needed more room in my fire safe file cabinet for my antique photos, so I sorted files in one of my regular file cabinets and came up with three banker boxes of shredding! Then I moved files from my fire safe to the regular that are no longer as important as they were a few years ago. That means I have an extra drawer in the fire safe to spread out.
Next I will inventory albums and packages of photos as best I can as I arrange them in the drawers devoted to the old photos.
As I do that I plan to look for the originals of a few photos that were poorly scanned. Fingers crossed on that endeavor.
Sometimes I feel that I am always organizing and throwing away, but in the past year I have been more determined and now I am buckling down even more. I’ve been doing Swedish death cleaning in other areas of the house, but that too will take a long time. I have so many drawers and boxes of academic papers and stories and poems, as well as critiques from workshops and drafts of finished work.
In the meantime, I have a list of a lot of things I’ve lost track of. I hope I find some of them!
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Here is an unidentified photo in a family album. It’s likely she is a family member, perhaps someone I’ve already posted about! The portrait was taken in Kalamazoo.
The coat and muff are quite elaborate, and the hat seems a bit unusual. Lovely. Best guess is that she is Carrie Paak Remine.
The Family Kalamazoo 
Feeling guilty. I’ve got three 4-drawer filing cabinets. Just told my husband I either need another room or a secretary. Maybe I should just sort and make hard decisions.
I’ve tried that for awhile now–and IT NEVER HAPPENED. I especially wanted the “assistant.” Secretary is a little too fancy. I was thinking of somebody I could boss around–do this, now do this. 😉
And you see, Luanne, all of your hard work and organizing pays off with great rewards of amazing genealogical collections!! Onward.
It’s more like I am trying to do all these photos that have come my way justice in preparation for the next or next-next generation . . . .
Yes, it is about the Next Gen, Luanne.
I want to, but something always jumps in front. Good luck!
Hah, yes, that is so true. That is why I am trying to do a bit every day, as I can squeeze it in. But right now I am in the middle of a big get-rid-of thing. I just added another shred box to the stack! Thanks, Jeanne.
I have a huge binder thingy I lug around, but haven’t the space to do the real album creating, etc. What on Earth is Swedish death cleaning?
Swedish death cleaning is where you start getting rid of a lot of stuff so that your family doesn’t have to deal with it when you die. Pretty grim, but it’s a “thing” in Sweden and now for some here in the U.S. I could do this cleaning and removal stuff every day for a decade and still have plenty of “stuff” left over. I am stirring up a lot of dust though . . . .
Essential. Had we only known earlier. 🙂
Hahahaha. I know, so true!
Hey cuz. Noting Carrie’s profile…she may be pregnant. This might help date and place the photo. You are so devoted to this project. Such great work. I’m watching 😉
Hi cuz!!! WOW, that would be a mystery. I am pretty sure she’s Carrie. And Carrie never had any living children. So now I am curious if she was pregnant and lost a baby because you are right, she does look pregnant. Unless it’s the cut of the coat and she has that sort of posture.
nice, I would not want others to have to deal with unnecessary cleaning and disposal of things that didn’t mean anything to me, or were just clutter.
Or to miss something important because there was too much unnecessary paper and other junk.
That’s a lovely photo. She looks very composed and perhaps the comment that she may be pregnant would account for her appearing so contained.
I am mystified about her appearing pregnant because I think it’s Carrie and she didn’t have children. But of course that doesn’t mean she wasn’t pregnant at one point!
Doesn’t she (Carrie) look wonderful in that fringed and braided coat! I am going to have to get down to some serious decluttering soon. I have boxes of stuff in the loft that need going through and I’m dreading it!
Other than stirring up dust that is making it hard to breathe, and I am loving getting rid of stuff :)! Yes, that coat is really unique and beautiful!
Yes to death cleaning – and just the ordinary spring stuff. Why can’t I ever seem to get around to it? I’m making a little progress on getting the genealogy organized, though. Baby steps!
That is a real keeper of a photo. Maybe she does look pregnant, but I’d never ask her!
Hah, I know! Good work on the genealogy organization!!!
I wish I had more research and photo’s to organize, lol – great project! That photo is fabulous! That coat and muff! I want it 🙂
Awww you are accumulating more and more. Loved your new post!
I agree about the coat and muff!
I’m organizing and cleaning right now! Or, I intended it so.
Intended?! Hahaha. I admit I really had to work on my mindset!
I am worried about what you are throwing out! How do you know you won’t need/want/use those later? What if some later researcher would? I realize space is limited, but I assume you’ve at least scanned anything you are throwing away in hard copy. (I have very little in hard copy since my family kept nothing, so I may be more OCD about this as a reaction to my mother’s tendency to throw out everything as soon as possible.)
No worries. I have so much junk I am getting rid of. Nothing important.
I love her fresh, open expression. She looks curious about the world. Lovely. We did a massive clean out when we sold our place in October. I ended up scanning quite a few documents and filing them in the cloud, which has turned out to be fabulous. It was worth buying a good, fast scanner. It didn’t take a crazy amount of time to scan a large pile of documents. I feel your pain though and applaud your determination!!
Patti, do you mind sharing what scanner you bought? Btw, I am rethinking the identity of the portrait. She may be Carrie’s sister Mary who had three children.
Epson ScanSmart. It works really well. I haven’t scanned photos, though. But it works very well for print. I’m thinking I’ll need to go to a place like Walmart to do all the photos, but I haven’t done it yet.
Oh darn, I want one that will do photos well and fast, too. Not that I can get one right now, but if/when I do, I’d like to know the right one to get.
I think the higher quality photo scanners will cost quite a bit more. I think the Epson was around $100.
I admire this effort and should model it. I am moving and trying to organize my family history records as part of that process. I am impressed that you find things to shred, though, as I tend to hold onto things “just in case” (knowing this is probably not a helpful habit). Good work!
I’m going through a period now where I can’t do any organizing at all, and it’s driving me crazy. I feel as if I’m losing ground. But thanks for your nice comments!
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