Organization & Preservation Tips for Genealogy Spring Cleaning

Introduction: In this article, Scott Phillips—weary of this long, cold winter—jumpstarts thoughts of spring by planning his genealogy spring cleaning tasks. Scott is a genealogical historian and owner of Onward To Our Past® genealogy services.

Wow, what a winter we are having this year! But there is good news: March 1st was the beginning of Meteorological Spring! If you don’t believe me, just take a look at this 1937 article from a New Jersey newspaper, which says:

The astronomical Spring is fixed by the sun, the meteorological Spring by the calendar. So the weatherman’s Winter ended a week ago.

(Note: all of the newspaper articles used to illustrate this Blog post come from GenealogyBank’s online Historical Newspaper Archives.)

So we have passed one spring beginning, and have one to go—with this year’s astronomical start of spring occurring on March 20th with the vernal equinox.

I prefer to follow the seasons in the Farmer’s Almanac. Although the currently-produced Farmer’s Almanac has been in continuous publication since its first issue in 1818, I came across an advertisement for one of its predecessors all the way back in a 1792 Massachusetts newspaper.

All of this talk and my dreaming of springtime got me thinking about doing some spring cleaning, especially of my genealogy and family history materials.

So I dug in and began to devise my genealogy spring cleaning plan. Although a serious project, I want to keep the work of getting things organized enjoyable—keeping in mind a delightful and fun article I once found in a 1951 Texas newspaper.

I got a good chuckle at a few of this newspaper article’s suggestions, such as:

• “Never use chairs or tables in place of stepladders.”
• “Don’t carry sharp objects or hot liquids up or down stairs if at all possible.”
• “Avoid electrical contacts while standing on damp floors.”
• “Avoid overtiring or muscle strain.”

If you follow my spring cleaning rules outlined below, you can avoid any overtired or strained muscles while getting a fresh start this 2014. I hope my organization and preservation tips help you with your genealogy spring cleaning tasks!

Tip #1: Digitally Copy Anything Still on Paper

I want to make my genealogy pursuit and passion something that can be easily passed on to someone in the family once I “shuffle off this mortal coil,” and to me the best way to do that is to have absolutely everything I can in digital format. Not only to preserve it, but to make it far simpler for anyone to take over. Piles of paper are just not conducive to much of anything except perhaps the “Victory Waste Paper Campaign” profiled in this article from a 1944 Oregon newspaper. It was estimated that at that time each household in Portland, Oregon, had an average of 38.5 pounds of “this No. 1, critical war material, stowed away.”

By the way, I think I am well above this average weight of paper—hence my first genealogical spring cleaning task. So it is to my scanner I go!

Tip #2: Catalog Genealogy Books

While I will be digitally copying as many paper records, documents, etc., as I can find in my house, I still love old books and have plenty of them around as well. Since I don’t have the time to digitize my books that are out of copyright—and I have many that are still within their copyright and can’t be digitized anyway—I have set as my next spring cleaning task to get organized: to catalog each of the genealogy and history books on my office bookshelf. Now my book collection is far from huge, but again I want them to be easily listed for anyone who might be interested in the future.

As you can read in this 1909 article from an Idaho newspaper, the Library of Congress was already, at that time, the 3rd largest library in the world. As a result, I decided that if they can get their books organized, so can I.

I’ve chosen to use the online site LibraryThing.com to polish off this task and am well on my way, with over 150 of my books listed so far.

Tip #3: Follow a Rule from 1951 and Don’t Strain Anything!

I think of myself as an amenable fellow (some of my friends and colleagues even call me a “Do Bee” at times). For those of you who might be just a bit younger than I, check out this article from a 1966 Nebraska newspaper if you are not familiar with what the expression “Do Bee” means!

Anyway, I decided that I better be certain I am following the rules from that 1951 spring cleaning newspaper article, especially the one about being careful of any strains or sore muscles.

It was at this point that I read an article from a 1958 Massachusetts newspaper about golf’s Masters Tournament.

The newspaper article featured a hero from my boyhood, Arnold Palmer, who donned the champion’s Green Jacket after winning the Masters Tournament. What could be more spring-like than to begin sipping a summer drink! Because I couldn’t decide between lemonade or ice tea, I tipped my hat to Mr. Palmer and mixed myself an “Arnold Palmer” drink.

I then sat back, thought of warmer days to come, and toasted myself for completing my spring cleaning tasks list, knowing that I am on my way to doing more efficient and organized genealogy research in 2014. I will work steadily, a little bit every day—careful not to strain myself—until I have digitally preserved all my paper records and cataloged all my books before summer arrives!