I have chosen to undertake a great project: Translate the family record from the 1800s

[Taverner]

Granted, it is written in English, but every sentence I read I need to go to the dictionary.

Half the time I can't make out the characters - it is all hand written.

But someone has to do this.

And it has to be me.

As the one who inheretied my Grandmother's real treasures (photos dating back to the early 1800s, journals, property deeds, etc) I need to make this available not just to my family, but the world.

Would anyone be interested in this?

Would this help anyone understand early Americana?

Would this even help my family, fractured and torn, learn anything?

I have no idea. But I feel its my obligation to do this.

If I don't, no one will.

My Grandmother (RIP) started this project, but gave up after 5 years. This was the turn of the century.

Since then, the book still sat.

If I don't bring their story to light, no one will.

Where should I even start?

I feel overwhelmed, but every fiber of my being says I must do this.

[applegrove]

1. I inherited 4 boxes of family records so I put them on family tree maker (which is part of ancestry

.com). I spent hours scanning in photographs and documents. Then came the dissemination part which I am afraid to do. The reason? as soon as I burn and send out cds of this familytreemaker family tree someone distant relative will put it on their computer and press the send button when ancestry.com asks for their information. And then it will be out there and ancestry.com will charge money to all my distant relatives any time they do a search for information well into ETERNITY!!!. And I don't want that. But there is no getting around it. It just makes me sick. I wish there was some way I could make the cd read only but I don't know enough about computers to do that. I should just suck it up and send it out but I definitely have a block where this is involved. Thankfully, I know the four boxes of stuff are going to go to the Canadian archives one day soon. And I'm glad about that. Especially the one version of the huge family tree that a distant relative did in 1898, over 100 years ago.

[dimbear]

2. One possible trick: take the best digital photos you can and then

work on them in whatever your favorite photo program is to make the print stand out. Of course that would make it easy to send the pages around to your relates too.

Try different kinds of illumination and different angles shining the lights. Try filters if you have them...

Also, there are lots of civil war journals around that you can read. That'll give you an idea of the way ordinary people talked and wrote, not that your family could be ordinary in any way.:)

[bikebloke]

3. I've got the inverse problem.

I became the family historian. But all my grandmother's documents and photos were stored with a sociopathic sibling who destroyed them.

With Ancestry.com, I was reluctant to post what few photos I have of people. I did post my photos of head stones. Then made my account open to all, so the info is accessible to others with free accounts.