Feng Shui at Home

Hi, All:

I have a dilema that I'm sure others have as well.

I am the oldest child in my birth family of 6. I have 7 kids myself, and by August, 20 grandchildren (oldest will be 9 in May, whew!).

Both my husband's and my parents are deceased, as is my oldest son (killed in an accident when his daughter was 2 years old). It would also help to know that my hobby for more than 30 years is genealogy.

Now here's the situation: we have a lot of "stuff" from both sides of the family that I don't want to let go of because I consider it "archival" (both hubby & I have worked in libraries). We have several closed glass display cases for family chotchkas, and that works out well. Where we are having the problem is with the paper trail.

I have over 3000 photos sorted and sitting in boxes waiting to go into scrapbooks. I'm not talking fancy stuff, I'm talking just your basic photo with identifying info (a personal peeve for genealogists). I also have all sorts of letters--my parents' correspondence when my Dad was stationed overseas in the Korean War, stuff relating to my grandparents' lives, my dad's military records and commendations, you get the picture. These are all items of historical value to my family. Not to mention the genealogy documents.

As far as other "stuff," every time we go visit the kids we bring them a tub of their personal items from school, etc. that they've left here. We want to let them decide what to keep and what to toss, because when both my hubby & my parents died in the past few years, there was still stuff from *our* childhoods in their houses (and we're both in our early 50's).

I have saved a selection of items from my oldest son so I can share them with my granddaughter when she gets older. Since she was 2 when he was killed, she has no memory of him although she has seen photos and video (what a Godsend video is!).

I am really having a hard time trying to decide what bits of paper to toss, and how to manage the rest. How best to organize it, where to store it, where to display it, etc. Giving stuff to our local library or university is not an option because we are not from here and so the collection would not have local historical value.

Ideas, please. I'm on sabbatical until at least next August, so I have plenty of time to tackle the clutter.

Jane

Hi, Jane, and welcome! I'm so sorry to hear about your son. It's good you're creating a legacy for his daughter. If that video is on tape, you might want to have it duplicated on DVD. Just a thought.

It sounds to me as though you're on the right track by taking keepsakes to your children. Do you also have things you can send to your siblings? One of the things my mom and I did was take a weekend and go through boxes and albums of photos, sorting them into separate boxes for each of my siblings. I decided what I wanted copies of for my own archives and sent the rest on. For one of my younger sister's 50th birthday, I assembled a scrapbook that included photos of the two of us taken through the years.

Although it's difficult, you could select a few of the most significant or meaningful of the photos of your family that you would like to display in your Helpful People and Family areas. Eliminate any photos that aren't good enough to keep or that are in bad condition. Some not so great photos might make good filler or background images for a scrapbook, though. Do the same with the paper.

My husband is also into his family's geneology and we have so much information in books, on microfiche, documents, etc. that he has accumulated over the years - I know what you mean! Have you tried going online to search for others doing research on their branches of your family? You might find someone who would be interested in things you would otherwise want to donate to the library.

Perhaps you need to dedicate a particular cabinet or closet to your archives so that they're in one place, rather than all over the house. Decide what of the chotchkas you want to keep for yourselves and let the others find homes with your siblings or children.

See where I'm headed? The more you let go of, the more significant will be what you keep.

You're already on that path. May the wind be at your back. :)

Please do stay in touch with us.

Hi, Alysia:

Thanks for your kind words and suggestions. I posted this question on another board, and someone there suggested displaying the family mementos during holidays. While I usually do hang up family ornaments on the Christmas tree, this suggestions was about creating a display for *other* holidays like Mother's Day, birthdays, etc.

I thought that was a great idea. Even though I have several dedicated glass cases for the family chotchkas, having a shelf or two for a "rotating" display really hit home. Plus it keeps the more fragile items out of the UV light.

As for divvi-ing up the family treasures, we already did that when our parents either passed away or sold their houses before moving into retirement homes. Everyone pretty much took what was theirs and an item or two from our parents that had personal meaning to them. My father-in-law even invited the grandchildren to take what they wanted before he sold his house.

What remains is more historical than sentimental. With doing genealogy, you know how difficult it can be sometimes to get original records, so I am very reluctant to let that sort of stuff go. I'm the only one in the family interested in preserving this material right now, so maybe it's just not the right time *to* let it go. My kids are interested in genealogy, but right now, they are too busy raising their own.

I do post my research online (rootsweb) for all to see, and make scans of pix to either post or burn to cd for family distribution. But that doesn't get rid of the actual "stuff."

Someone else suggested to me, "if it's organized, it's a collection; if it's piled, it's clutter." I might print that up and frame it. ;)

Thanks again,
Jane