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Family records

Repairing Gaps in History

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Anyone who’s dabbled in genealogy knows the frustration of trying to find information many generations back, but African Americans seeking information on their ancestors have unique problems. Those who trace their roots back to enslaved people often struggle to find any records or even names to continue their search.

Director Marybeth Niederkorn of the Cape Girardeau County Archive Center sat down with Anderson Archival again to explain what she’s doing to help those searching for records in the Cape Girardeau, Missouri, area.

The Slave Index

Niederkorn first noticed the records in her care weren’t serving the needs of researchers when an out-of-state genealogist contacted the Archive Center for information. He’d traced his family back to slaves born in Cape Girardeau. Niederkorn explains, “Dealing with any kind of research into genealogy of people who are descended from slaves means names are a problem. If you don’t know what name the enslaved person was under at the time they were purchased or transferred or inherited, you basically have very specialized problems.”

Since Niederkorn doesn’t have any specific training in genealogy of African American ancestry, she began going through all the materials the archive has that pertained to enslaved individuals in Cape Girardeau County. She quickly realized how difficult is to cross search the records and that many records pertaining to enslaved people are incomplete.

“We had slave schedules that were drawn from census records. Census records are kind of challenging, because all they give are gender and age range for up to a certain time frame. We don’t have actual names. We just have the owner’s name and the age ranges and genders of the people who were in his household. So that’s really challenging, you have to extrapolate a lot of information from that.”

Records are only as good as the people who kept the records, where the records were stored, and how they’ve been brought forward through the years.”

The Archives Center sources information from more than just census records, though it’s sometimes difficult to connect the dots. Thanks to the late Margaret Mates, a Cape Girardeau-area researcher, the Archive Center also has already-compiled county probate records from the 1800s.

“Margaret and her staff went through probate records . . . to find names, ages, genders of all enslaved people who were part of a deceased’s estate. And it’s not always clear if the enslaved persons were sold or inherited, so sometimes she had to just notate that as incomplete information in the record.”

In addition to the census and probate records of the time, the archive also possesses copies of valuable narratives from the 1930s Works Project Administration’s (WPA) Federal Writing Project. Under this program, the WPA sought out former slaves to record their stories and experiences. The out-of-state genealogist that had contacted the Archive Center had one of these narratives of his ancestor.

“It was actually one of his direct ancestors talking about his parents and who had owned them, who owned him, where he had lived, who his neighbors were. And that kind of information is really precious when you’re dealing with uncertainty around tracing a person,” Niederkorn said.

The problem with this wealth of useful data is that very little is indexed. This leaves both archive staff and researchers missing connections that could help them with their search.

I think one of the terrible legacies of slavery is such an erasure of history of the black community.”

Rather than accept the inefficiencies in how they researched enslaved people, Niederkorn decided to begin a master index to help researchers track down people.

“I started indexing those narratives and . . . was able to compile an index pretty quickly, and that helps with cross checking against Margaret Mates’ information. Now, I’m working on indexing records from a mission church that was a Catholic Church established, roughly between the 1940s and the 1960s, to serve Cape Girardeau’s black population. I’m looking through all these records of Catholic churches, and I’m seeing a lot of very familiar families.”

Collecting African American History

The importance of creating this index for researchers cannot be understated. For those genealogists seeking a connection to their family’s past, every little tidbit of information is a step forward.

“For a lot of people who are starting to research their genealogy, they are looking to answer questions about their family history. I think one of the terrible legacies of slavery is such an erasure of history of the black community. I can only go back to about the mid-1800s, because all of my ancestors were immigrants from Europe, but the thing is, those records exist. They’re just in a language I can’t read. Somebody doing comparable genealogy into an African American ancestor—those records probably simply don’t exist, and that is a very difficult situation. If there’s anything that we can do to help, I want to at least explore that.”

As word of Niederkorn’s efforts spread across the regional archival community, she’s gained new sources of information, and it’s becoming easier to inform researchers that they do have information on the people they asked about. While Niederkorn knows how helpful the index is, she says the response has been enlightening for her.

“All kinds of avenues for research that are readily available for white communities are not necessarily available for black communities, and I think there is a lot of generational pain that goes with that. Any information we can find and put together in such a way that it’s accessible, . . . it’s one of those things where I don’t think I realized the impact before I started working on this. The response from the people I am able to help has been pretty surprising, but shouldn’t have been surprising to me. People are learning a little bit about their families, and they had no real expectation of being able to, and that is tremendous.”

Niederkorn recalls one memorable example of how a little bit of information can lead to important discoveries. While Niederkorn searched for information on the previous researcher’s ancestor, a newspaper article ended up shining light on his family name.

“I work closely with Sharon Sanders, the librarian from the local newspaper, the Southeast Missourian and . . . Sharon found a story about [a descendant of the requested ancestor], but who wasn’t a direct ancestor of this researcher.

“But there was a little, tiny newspaper clipping about three/four inches long, about how a gentleman had been driving on South Sprigg Street in Cape Girardeau and had hit a cow. The cow belonged to a black gentleman who lived down on the south side of Cape, and [the clipping] mentioned the cow’s owner by name and where he lived. I said, ‘Oh, this guy is probably like a three times great uncle of this researcher I’m working on,’ so I asked if I could forward that newspaper clipping to this researcher.

“What was really helpful about that is this gentleman’s first name had become a family name, and the first name happened to coincide with a name that was mentioned as being the first name of a neighbor in the slave narrative. It was a very interesting kind of, ‘Oh, the neighbor’s name became the grandson’s first name and became other people’s first name.’ This researcher had wondered what the significance of this name was and I was able to tell him. It was just a random happenstance that it made it into the newspaper at all and that Sharon found it as I was researching the family. It was a very cool moment that was able to shed a little bit of light on one of those questions that he didn’t realize he had until the answer presented itself.”

People are learning a little bit about their families, and they had no real expectation of being able to, and that is tremendous.”

As more requests come, Niederkorn finds new sources of information that she can make more accessible through the index. Unfortunately, it’s not just poor recording on enslaved people or the black community in the area that stymies researchers. Many courthouses in the area were burned during the Civil War and some records were removed from known locations for safekeeping only to be lost.

“Records are only as good as the people who kept the records, where the records were stored, and how they’ve been brought forward through the years. We’re never going to have a perfect record of the enslaved people who were brought here, who built here, lived here, established families, and who made an incredible contribution that their names can’t necessarily be put to. I’m going to do my best to get as many names with as many actual people and stories and narratives that I can. That’s my end goal.”

 

Wouldn’t it be helpful to make records more accessible for research? Digitization is a solution that combats both inaccessibility and poor storage conditions. If you’re ready to work towards a digital solution for the records in your collection, let us know. We’ll provide a free consultation and estimate based on your unique collection and needs.

Digging into Cemetery Records

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How do organizations decide to digitize regularly used collections?

Infrastructural organizations like libraries, hospitals, schools, churches, and nonprofits rely on accurate, accessible records. Putting collections of essential records to the side for processing isn’t always feasible, and digitization isn’t fast when done correctly. Once an organization moves forward with digitizing their collection, decision makers often have to jump through hoops every step of the way to get the necessary funding approved.

To better understand the needs of nonprofits and other organizations that use their collections every single day, we spoke with recent Anderson Archival client Bernie Lockard. Lockard is on the board of Oakland Cemetery, which came to our firm with a collection of books dating back to the cemetery’s founding.

A Reverence for Records

The 34 wooded acres of Oakland Cemetery opened in 1864 in Indiana, Pennsylvania. “It’s been around for quite a few years,” Lockard says, “run by a nonprofit board and volunteers.” At the time the region needed more space to bury and honor their fallen Civil War heroes, and today the cemetery is the final resting place for around 20,000 souls.

An astonishing amount of record-keeping takes place in cemeteries. “The last thing you want to do is go to bury a body and there’s someone else there,” Lockard says. Oakland Cemetery’s collection consisted of deed books, board meeting minutes, and cemetery lot records that stretched back to the 1800s. “We would access them if there was a question on deed ownership or the exact location of an interred body,” Lockard explains. “Some of these [plots] are in old sections [of the cemetery]. You might happen to sell an unsold lot in an old section, so you’d have to open the book to record on paper that happened.”

As one can imagine, materials of that age don’t hold up very well to regular use.

We knew that we couldn’t access them physically much longer… Every time you opened that book, you lost a piece of history.”

“They’ve previously just been stored in a safe and accessed when necessary, particularly the oldest one that was starting to fall apart,” Lockard says. The pages of this oldest and largest record book—an armful measuring nearly 24”x18”—were brittle and flaking at the page edges, leaving an outline of paper shreds behind if the user wasn’t careful.

Journal held together with duct tape. Image used with permission.

Massive lot book. Image used with permission.

 

 

 

 

Digitization was the logical preservation solution for these essential records, but getting this collection to our scanners would not be an easy feat. Lockard first had to present the project to the rest of the board of directors. “From a nonprofit board,” Lockard describes, “when we’re investing money into assets that will create revenue for us, it’s one thing. When we’re investing money into projects like this that aren’t going to produce revenue, it’s something we have to be more careful with. We’re not worried about cutting grass next week, [but] it’s important for us to remain proactive.”

What was it like to convince the rest of the board that digitization was crucial? “Well, it took two meetings,” Lockard says. “[In] the first meeting, we had some objections as to did we really need to do it? It wasn’t so much the money, it was the need to have it done. Again, that speaks to having to be careful with money spent on non-revenue projects like this.”

The second meeting about the project was more effective. “We actually showed some of the board members the books so they could understand the shape they were in. Then they pretty much agreed that part of our stewardship is to maintain these records.”

A severely-damaged original. Image used with permission.

Investments Uninterred

That stewardship was the final piece needed to convince the board of directors. In fact, Oakland Cemetery had encountered digital preservation in the past for this reason. “We had undertaken a project about five years ago to digitize all our records. We have a database now that we have access to these books for that purpose,” Lockard says. “This is kind of the final step of this modernization project. Our goal now is taking these books to store inside one of the crypts, hopefully never to be accessed.”

As it turns out, the inconvenience of sending important and frequently used records away and budgeting for their digitization is a part of the stewardship that Oakland Cemetery’s board is used to. Cemeteries require endless expenses and investments that industry outsiders might never consider. “Trees and vegetation around the cemetery cost constantly as they need to be replaced,” Lockard says. “Trees are expensive, but we feel like it’s part of our part of our image.”

Investing in digital preservation is a part of Oakland Cemetery’s dedication to its patrons, both alive and interred. Lockard explains this best using the example of Chief State Supreme Court Justice John P. Elkin, an Indiana native who died in 1916. “His wife got this grand mausoleum for him and her family,” Lockard says. “In the early 1960s, the family gave the mausoleum to the cemetery.” As the structure aged, it started to rack up a list of expenses: a new roof, new pointing, patched leaks, and ventilation issues. “We spent $150,000 to fix it up. And it’s another one of these things that’s not income-producing but is part of the image.” Cultivating the cemetery’s environment as a whole includes preserving that history through paper records as well.

Oakland Cemetery’s new additions to its digital records database is currently serving the community in more ways than trees and plots. “Now that we have this [digital collection] we are sharing those files with a local historical society,” Lockard says. “At some point, access to this is going to make its way into our website as well. We are creating a historical tour of the cemetery that will probably link to the digital files, so you see the actual deed transfer that occurred or how someone passed.” The collection of massive record books and meeting minutes may have found their final resting place, but the digital versions live on to enhance the experience of the cemetery’s day-to-day operations—and hopefully patrons in the near future.

“We still have some books to get done yet,” Lockard shares. “The board didn’t approve all the money yet, but hopefully, that’ll happen in the next month or so. You know, when you have a cemetery with a board of old men, things take time to happen.”

 

Are you having trouble deciding how to preserve the collections your organization use every day? Give Anderson Archival a call to get the expert advice you deserve.

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What’s the Easiest Way to Lose a Collection?

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That question seems counter-intuitive, doesn’t it? In fact, most people who come to Anderson Archival are looking for the exact opposite—the easiest and best way to preserve their collection for the long haul. But if most collection-owners really want to preserve their collections, keep them safe, and make them available to share, why do so many collections get lost in the chaos of daily life?

Because the easiest way to lose a collection is to do nothing.

Too many collectors end up doing nothing for a lot of reasons. Let’s take a look at some of them.

I Just Discovered My Collection

It’s hard to preserve a collection you don’t even know about! But that means now is the perfect time to act.

It’s been who knows how long since your documents, photos, and books have been properly cared for, and worse, you don’t have any way to know how they were handled (or mishandled!) before they came to you.  It’s time to review the collection for items that need to be conserved and organize essential items for digitization.

My Collection Is Huge and Varied: I Have No Idea How to Start “Doing Something”

This is probably the reason we hear most frequently from clients. The sentiment is often followed by another: “Help!”

Here are a few avenues to consider:

  • Work with a conservator or consultant for initial review. This archival expert can advise on organization, storage, items that need special care and handling, and the next steps to take.
  • Take a DIY approach. Sit down with family or other decision-makers to determine how you’d prefer to organize the collection, such as by date, person, type of media, or any combination of factors. Also determine what pieces are worth keeping, preserving, and digitizing.
  • Triage, divide, and conquer. Send damaged and fragile pieces to a conservator, and reserve essential items for digitization. While that is being done, sort, store, and come up with a plan for processing the rest in due time.

Especially with large collections, this process can take a long time. We’d be lying to suggest otherwise! But while all of these pieces come together and you slowly gain understanding of your collection, you are certainly not doing nothing.

Every step taken to care for a collection is a step away from losing it.

My Collection Is in Great Condition: I’m Not Worried

Isn’t it tempting to believe how your collection looks now is how it will look forever? That all of the information, images, and memories will always be there when you need them for reference or comfort?

Just ask the librarians at Alexandria, the docents of Brazil’s Museo Nacional, or countless other stewards who will give the same warning: what’s here today could be gone in a flash tomorrow. Fire, flood, vandalism, or simple carelessness can all result in a ruined collection or one that is simply just not what it used to be.

The best time to take steps towards preservation and digitization is when a collection is in great condition. That way you can rest easy knowing that how your collection looks now really is how it will look forever.

My Collection Is Too Frequently Used to Care For: I Can’t Do Anything

Having a collection of high public or private interest is a blessing, but in the field of preservation it’s also a curse! There are essentially two options for a busy collection, and weighing these options is going to be something that you, your patrons, and other decision-makers must grapple with.

Option One: The collection remains in circulation and active use. With each use, it sustains a little more wear and damage until information is lost. With no master digital copy to refer back to, the lost information (a line of text, a chunk of a page, or an entire volume) is gone forever. Poof.

Option Two: Pieces of the collection are rotated out of circulation for conservation repairs and digitization. Patrons may be frustrated when they find that something they want is temporarily unavailable, but once processed, the pieces can be returned to circulation. If they sustain damage again, they go back into the conservation rotation. If they become lost or too damaged for repair, the information they contained is accessible via its digital counterpart. They can also be put into storage, and researchers all around the world can access the digital versions, saving the originals from additional stress. The options for access are many, and the originals remain intact for posterity. No poof.

In this option, doing something will very likely cause some friction, and cost time and money. The end result of a collection that can stand the test of time, however, is well worth it.

My Collection Is Stored Safely: I’m Done!

That’s great, but, unfortunately, preservation isn’t a set it and forget it project. If you’ve already had the collection reviewed by a conservator, know it is in archival-safe storage, and have a master digital copy, you can check off a lot of boxes. But the truth is, you’re never fully done “doing something” for your collection.

Preservation professionals recommend regular reviews of your collection even when all signs point to good conditions and a safe collection.

  • Check for signs of new wear from climate fluctuation, pests, or dust accumulation.
  • Make sure storage containers remain in good condition.
  • Keep an eye on conditions in the surrounding environment. Even the best archival-safe box won’t do much against a major fire or flood.

I Have Digital Copies, So the Information Is Saved: I’m Done!

Having digital copies offers collectors a great sense of relief that no matter what happens to the physical collection, the information is safe and sound. But doing nothing more than having a digital copy can lead to tragedy later on.

Technology is constantly changing, and what was working fine ten or twenty years ago might not even turn on now. Hard dives can fail, external storage can sustain damage, and some file types may not work on modern computers. Don’t let your digital collection turn into an inaccessible paperweight. Pay as much attention to digital damage as you would physical damage.

  • Routinely access your digital collection to check for file corruption.
  • Check that all file types stored continue to work on modern computers. Update any that are at risk.
  • Make backups on a variety of mediums. A single flash drive doesn’t cut it.
  • Don’t leave all the copies in the same place. A fire can destroy computers as easily as books.
  • Transfer files to new storage as the existing devices become obsolete.

 

It can be easy to fall into the do-nothing trap, and sometimes you just don’t know where to begin. Have you been doing nothing with your collection? It’s time to start doing something! Give Anderson Archival a call and let’s talk about getting started.

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Everlasting Ti Amo – Italian Love Letters Preserved

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These days, some might consider letter writing an outdated form of communication or even a lost art. But at a time when one couldn’t simply send a text or email to a faraway love, these collections are a testament to everlasting human relationships. Correspondence has the ability to tell a story, and a collection of letters can keep a romance alive even after death.

We spoke with Carla Pasetti, whose family recently brought her collection to Anderson Archival for digitization help. The collection included hundreds of handwritten items from her father Armando to her mother Evelina, written in Italian. While this collection of letters and other paper miscellanea like postcards and translucent notes was in fairly good condition and enjoyable for the team to work on, it presented some other preservation challenges. We discuss working with a conservator to help organize and stabilize a collection before digital preservation occurs as well as the future of this romantic digitized collection.

AA: To start, what would you like to tell our audience about your collection and its history?

This was a collection of letters that my parents wrote to each other back in the early 50s. My father came to the United States back in 1938. He was fourteen years old and came from a small agricultural town of San Martino dall’Argine near Mantova, Italy. He came over to work for his uncle and aunt on The Hill [in St. Louis, MO].

On one of his trips back to Italy—which weren’t very frequent at that time, you know—he met my mother [whose] sister was engaged to be married to his brother. That’s how they met. I guess they immediately connected. When [my father went] back to St. Louis, they corresponded over about two and a half years before he went back to Italy and married her. And then a few months later, she came to join him in St. Louis.

There were quite a few letters and postcards, [which] I think totaled 473. We always knew that they were around, you know, just in a cigar box in the basement. My mother passed in 2019, and my father passed in late 2020. We wanted to just leave [the collection] until he had passed, but we always had an intention to do something with it.

Did you anticipate any particular challenges to digitizing these letters?

I knew that, in the end, I wanted to make a master book of the letters, and I knew that I wanted to use something like Shutterfly or Snapfish. I wanted this to be an homage to their correspondence back and forth. I was like, ‘I’m not going to alter these or edit at all. I just really want to have a picture of each letter that is clear enough that I can read.’

Now, some elements of the collection weren’t letters. Can you speak to some of these other items, like the postcards and translucent materials?

I think one of the ones you’re referring to might be the Easter card. [In the photo book] I just want to see their handwriting and what they’re saying to each other, so I didn’t [include the Easter card]. But I am glad that my mom especially sent a lot of postcards. That breaks up the collection in a way.

Translucent card

With a creative approach to capturing all details

All images property of Carla Pasetti and Angela Holland.

Images used with permission.

How does working with a conservator fit into this story?

During one of my many trips to St. Louis, we contacted [Conservator] Noah Smutz and brought the collection to him. He’s very, very experienced and was able to restore them, flatten them, and unfold them. [The letters were on] this very thin paper that was folded up, and back then they used different paper, especially in Europe. I don’t know if it was because of the weight of the airmail in that time. It took him about three and a half months to do, but he did a great job. He was actually the one that recommended Anderson Archival. He just said you guys know what you’re doing, and really, that’s what we needed.

So you connected with a conservator for the physical letters and you had a rough plan to create your photo book. How did Anderson Archival bridge the vision to the reality?

Well, I knew that I wanted a book of them. But you guys were able to really narrow it down to, ‘What kind of file do you want?’ So really [for] the digitization of the collection, you guys were very helpful. We decided to go with the JPEG form and definitely higher resolution because they’re kind of hard to read, some of them.

Another way that Anderson Archival helped was guiding us in how the files were organized. That was something that, I mean, it was like, ‘Do you want all the postcards in one folder?’ We wanted them in some sort of sequential order so that I could just pull them into the book.

Planning can be the trickiest part—aside from imaging itself, of course. Some of the translucent materials proved to be new challenges for our team.

I feel like you guys did a great job of doing that with the black background. It took a little bit of [emailing and approvals] back and forth, but not a whole lot. The timeliness was great. Everything was just a good experience.

A thin letter (with illustration) from Evelina to Armando. Property of Carla Pasetti and Angela Holland. Used with permission.

Did working with Smutz during the conservation steps of the project help you find anything new about your collection?

I guess back then there weren’t zip codes. My mom would write ‘St. Louis, MO’ and then in parentheses write ’10.’ And I’m like, ‘What the heck is that? Like, did she make a mistake?’ But it’s the final two numbers of the zip code, because where my dad was, was 63110. The ‘10’ was the post office’s way, before they had zip codes, to identify where in St. Louis they were. I had no idea.

[The letters] had all been folded, and so they were curved, and they were not in any sort of order. They did a great job, my parents did, really preserving the sequence of these letters. They were very good about putting the day, the month, the year, the time of day, and the place. We literally brought the cigar box to Noah, and he kind of carefully opened it and saw what we had.

What’s it been like to share such a personal collection with experts like Smutz and our team?

You know, going through them and reading some of them…I feel kind of like [I’m] reading somebody else’s mail, you know? But [my parents] were very sweet and tender with each other, loving words and stuff like that. It was very innocent, but just really special and very caring. Because they had the common family members, they kept tabs on each other’s family. My father was sending money back to Italy to help out his family.

Even just their salutations…I mean, you don’t have to know a whole lot of Italian [to understand]. But…my dad would throw in English [too], like [writing] ‘“Ti amo” that means “I love you” in English.’ This is very sweet.

What is it like to work on the photo book now that you have the collection conserved and digitized?

I’m very happy with it. The book is enormous, 11”x14”. This whole process, because I had to do them letter by letter, took probably about 10 to 15 hours of time. Now I think that because I know the layouts and how they look after getting the hard copy, I think it’ll take me a little bit less, maybe 10, for the other two. I’ve been able to break it up with their postcards, but I think in the next couple of volumes, I’ll add in more pictures of them when they were young and that sort of thing, just to mix it up a bit.

But it’s turning out really good. At first my middle sister was like, ‘Oh, I’m not interested in having a copy.’ But then she took a look at Volume One and was like, ‘No, I’ll take one.’ My kids want to look at them. They don’t read Italian right now, but it’s part of their history so I am happy that we are archiving them.

Was there anything else new that you discovered maybe about your family, or just about the collection itself, once you had the digitized files in front of you?

Like I said, I’m only [on] Volume One. I think I learn things every time I do this. I haven’t read every single letter, but I do try and read parts of every few. And that is, like I said before, it’s really emotional, and that I find things about them in their youth that, of course, I didn’t know. I think that’s super special and the reason why people should do things like this.

I was telling a friend about the collection, and she said she has letters that her uncle who was in the US Army wrote and she is putting together a book [with the original hard copies]. I was like, ‘Yeah, you should digitize everything, and then make this book,’ in order to preserve them instead of (or in addition to) just using the hard copies in a book. This way she can make multiple copies and share this part of her family history with her extended family members.

 

Have a vision for your collection that you’d like a little assistance bringing to life? Let’s talk. Call us today at 314.259.1900.

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Digital restoration of a classic

Beyond Image Capture

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In the realm of preservation, it’s essential that a digital file—a digital representation of the original object—accurately captures the current state of a physical object. The image file should effectively serve as a placeholder, an equivalent representation to the original object. That, along with secure storage and access, make up the field of digital preservation. For many original documents, this type of digital file is sufficient for reading, examination, and study.

However, some original documents are not suitable for study or examination with only a preservation master image. Yes, a digital record of the object exists, but no one can use it.

In these cases, a digital file provides an opportunity for editing, enhancement, and even restoration without any harm coming to the original document or preservation master image. When presented alongside the preservation master, these files provide a fuller, more complete picture of the object itself. They might even reveal details that are not discernable when viewing the physical document.

Here are some of the situations you may encounter and remediate with the help of digital archivists.

Ultra-Faint Text

Frustrated that time or sun exposure has faded the ink on an original document? Perhaps the original author wrote only in faint pencil. Even documents written today will eventually fade if the originals are kept in sunlight or the ink isn’t color-fast. Regardless of how the damage happened, collectors or family members are left with a one-of-a-kind original that they can’t read.

Thankfully, there are methods to enhance what little detail is available. If you’ve ever used a copy machine, you’ve likely played a little with brightness and contrast. Sometimes, adjusting the amount of light on an original is enough to draw out the faded text. Ultra-faint text can require far more digital manipulation to bring out the writing and can result in images that no longer accurately represent the original.

To retain visual context, these often-colorful copies should be reviewed in addition to the originals. Hyper-enhanced digital files are by no means a replacement the preservation master image, the digital files may offer more functionality than the original.

Inaccessible Original Text

It’s difficult enough when bound items don’t have the range of motion sufficient to fully open, but when the binding is set over the text or the original author scrawled notes deep into the gutter, capturing the entire document can feel impossible.

Acquiring seemingly inaccessible text depends on your preservation priorities.

  • Does the bound, complete object provide more historic value than a deconstructed version? It may be preferable to hire a conservator who is trained to relax the binding while keeping the original intact.
  • Were printed periodicals bound as a form of collecting, as was common for journals and newspapers? Disbinding could be the best option to restore and capture their original state.
  • Is capturing the text more important than maintaining the integrity of the physical document? Evaluate how much and what kind of damage you are willing to accept in order to create an complete digital record.

That said, there are many reasons why a collector may not want to unbind or deconstruct a physical object. In these cases, it’s up to the digital archivist to explore solutions with the collector to make inaccessible original text clear.

Not all digitization suites are as sophisticated as the one performing reconstructive X-rays on ancient locked letters, but most are equipped to help bring initially inaccessible original text to light. A book cradle used in conjunction with high-resolution photography can capture the interior of books that don’t have a large opening range, and comparisons with the physical pages can help a digital specialist recreate areas cut off by binding.

Original map from The History of the Roman Empire, Volume I.

Restored

Reversing Damage

Looking at an aged and time-worn document can feel disheartening. Once a document has been damaged, it is unlikely that it will ever reflect its former state again, even with pricy restoration. For many historical documents, the condition of a document is just as important to capture as the information it contains. Conservators can address physical damage to a document without erasing what time has done to it, stabilizing it for the future and buying time for it to be digitized.

Even if originals cannot be repaired or restored, there are numerous reasons why a collection owner may wish to have their damaged originals digitally restored. Many restored digital files are not expected to replace the preservation master image, but are used for side-by-side display, easy access copies, easier study, or historically-accurate reprinting and republishing.

Digital restoration can provide collectors with any level of visual corrections, from undoing stains to digitally compiling multiple torn pieces of paper together. These digital versions can be made “clean” again, erasing hundreds of years of handling and wear without disturbing the physical object.

This option isn’t for everyone or every collection, and it certainly should never be used as a master preservation file. That said, there is a time and place for this important digital work!

 

If your collection is nearing the point of potentially unreadable digitization, there are some solutions you can try. Until the collection can be digitized, store originals out of sunlight and away from any other environmental exposure. Consult with a conservator to see if tightly bound material can be loosened, folded items relaxed, and torn items repaired.

When beginning down the road of digital preservation, it’s important to consider your goals for the collection, including potential roadblocks like damage or difficult-to-read text. Keeping long-term preservation goals top of mind will guide you to the appropriate solutions for your needs. Explore the many digital restoration options with experts to make your digital collection functional as well as preserved.

 

Are you ready to discuss your collection’s potential? Give Anderson Archival a call today!

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Historical collections need preservation plans

More Than Digital: Building a Preservation Plan

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There are so many things to consider when choosing to preserve a collection, both in digital and physical format. Though the needs of digital preservation are not the same as those of physical preservation, it’s important to keep both sides in mind when building a preservation plan. Neglecting one could reduce quality and access to digital files, while ignoring the other could lead to document deterioration or complete destruction. Whether you’re a private collector or a large organization, having a thought-out preservation plan can increase the quality and longevity of your collection.

What Is a Preservation Plan?

A preservation plan is more than simply choosing where to store your collection or which items should be digitized first. A proper preservation plan should consider everything required to care for and maintain your collection’s physical and digital materials.

Simply having a preservation plan doesn’t mean that all is perfect in your collection.

Short-, medium-, and long-term goals keep your preservation plan evolving with the needs and best practices of the preservation industry.

With a plan as comprehensive as this, where do you even start?

Assessment of Your Preservation Needs

Until you know what you have, you can’t know how to preserve it. What’s called a “preservation needs assessment” is a great way to start building your preservation plan. By analyzing the work you’re already doing to care for and maintain your collection, alongside any problems that might have been overlooked, you can determine which steps you need to take right away and what you can address as time and funding permit to ensure the continued stability and accessibility of your collection.

A preservation needs assessment should include, but is not limited to:

  • A complete overview of the collection, including quantity, type, and condition of materials.
    • Note special requirements needed to house or preserve certain material types. Some materials could be at risk of fire, fading, or deterioration in non-ideal conditions.
    • Note items in need of repair and conservation treatment.
    • Look at how often the collection is used and which items are accessed repeatedly or not at all.
  • A walkthrough of the interior and exterior of any building(s) that stores your collection.
    • Look for cracks in the foundation, mold growth, insect or rodent activity, and any hazardous conditions that could cause manmade damage, such as exposed wiring near flammable materials.
    • Document what protections are in place to regulate the environment, react to emergency situations, or secure the collection against theft and unauthorized use.
  • An assessment of the storage materials housing the collection.
    • Check how many items are stored in acid-free, archival quality boxes or folders.
    • Note any damaged boxes or improper storage methods currently being used, such as items stacked together without any storage medium or oversized items crammed into spaces that are too small to fit them.
    • Document any items in need of immediate rehousing to safer storage materials.
  • An analysis of the care and handling procedures staff and patrons use when accessing the collection.
    • Determine if there are clear and written procedures for people to follow and if those procedures are satisfactory to the care of the collection.
    • Test how well staff are trained in these procedures.
    • See if staff has been trained in emergency response to natural or man-made disasters.
  • An overview of any digital materials in the collection.
    • Note whether these are born digital, digital copies of items physically in the collection, or digital copies of items not physically in the collection.
    • Check the file extensions of all digital items and the staff’s ability to access the information in those file types.
    • Record where the digital collection is located, on what medium it is saved, and how many copies of it exist.
    • Determine if digital materials are being used to prevent overhandling of the physical collection.
    • Note any present or future digitization efforts already in place, or if digitization is a viable option to reduce handling of the collection.

Each preservation needs assessment is different depending on the collection being assessed, but when you’re done, you’ll have the necessary information to create a preservation plan. During this process, carefully consider your priorities for remedying any issues the preservation needs assessment found. Dividing all remediation needs into short-, medium-, or long-term goals can help with prioritization.

  • What can be done immediately and with little to no cost?
  • What can be done in a reasonable time frame or might require adjusting your budget?
  • What must wait until sufficient staff or money is available?
  • What must be done immediately even though it will require putting off more easily completed remediation?

A preservation plan shouldn’t only focus on what needs to be fixed.

It should also include how you plan to continue the care and maintenance of all aspects that don’t need remediation. It should include policies on how to handle, grow, and access your collection. The more you have written down in clear language, the easier it will be to teach everyone using the collection what needs to be done and how to do it the right way. After all, the goal of a preservation plan is to keep your collection safe and in use for all who need it.

Get Help with Your Preservation Plan

Conservators across the country are skilled in performing preservation needs assessments and assisting in remediation of issues. Northeast Document Conservation Center (NEDCC)’s course on preservation plans is invaluable if you decide to undertake this process yourself, or conservators are ready to partner with you to make the process easier. If you’re not certain you can afford a conservator, many grants cover preservation needs assessments for collections.

Once you’re ready to take action, it can help to work with a conservator for physical preservation remediation or a digitization vendor to ensure that digital copies of your collection are captured to archival standards.

 

Do you need help digitizing your collection as part of your preservation plan?

 

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Capturing these photographs was essential

Who Can You Trust with Your History?

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Recent Anderson Archival client Steve Brunkhorst found himself the caretaker of four old family albums. Like many others in the same situation, he didn’t know how to share the collection with his family in a way that was fair and sustainable for the materials.

But the biggest challenge was finding someone he knew he could trust with his collection during the project. Steve didn’t want to ship the albums to someone he didn’t know, because these were important family heirlooms. He wanted to find a digital preservation firm that would take personal accountability for his collection.

Even home collectors with amateur scanning experience can benefit from reaching out to a digitization firm to ensure they have the longest lasting file formats and image quality. We sat down with Steve to talk about trusting in the process, trusting that the physical items will be well taken care of, and trusting in the enhancement and digital versions of this history.

AA: Can you describe the collection and its significance to you?

My mother passed away last year at 93 years. She had a very long, very healthy, and pretty happy life. I live in St. Louis, so I ended up with many of her cherished possessions, including this collection of [four] photo albums. One was put together by her mother, one was hers, one was my father’s, and one was my mother and father’s from the time they met until the time they started having children.

Four albums filled with family memories

Four albums filled with family memories. Image from Steve Brunkhorst’s collection and used with permission.

AA: That’s a lot of history in just four albums! I’m sure they piqued the curiosity of other family members too. Did that influence your decision to digitize them?

I have a brother and two sisters. Everyone has some interest in these old photo albums, so this was a problem staring me in the face. I was trying to find a way to share the albums in a way that was equitable and could be appreciated and easily accessible. And I do have a little bit of knowledge about scanning. I’ve got a fairly good amateur flatbed scanner, and I’m interested in photography a little bit, so I have Photoshop Elements, which allows you to correct images.

AA: With that knowledge, what was your original vision for digitizing the albums?

 I had some knowledge of what I wanted done, but I knew I did not want to do it myself for a couple of reasons. One, my flatbed scanner does not have a large enough bed for the size of some of the albums. [Also] one of the albums did not come apart, as it was bound. And the third reason was, I just simply didn’t want to put that much work into it myself.

I knew there were scanning companies where you would send a shoebox full of photos in and they’d send you something back. I was looking for a local company because I did not really want to take these irreplaceable albums and put them in the mail to someone I did not know. I was hoping I would [physically] hand [over] my documents and feel like there was some personal accountability rather than putting a box in the mail.

AA: Did you receive that personal touch you were looking for?

This [project] was being done while COVID was still a big concern. I did not actually enter your facility beyond the entry lobby, but I was just blown away. [Principal Mark Anderson] came over and talked to me a little bit and gave me a lot of confidence that I was for sure in the right place.

AA: Can you tell me more about what the digitization process was like from your perspective?

The idea was that I’ll give [the albums] to my brother and two sisters in the digital format, so this was a dilemma of how to do that. The dilemma [could be] solved by scanning everything, so everybody gets everything in a digital format, and then each of the brothers and sisters gets another piece in the old historical legacy format.

I didn’t know exactly what I wanted in the way of PDFs or JPEGs. [Content Specialist Marcia Spicer] offered a standard package of PDFs and JPEGs at different scan densities and even TIFFs. That was something that I didn’t know to request, but due to her experience, it was offered. That worked out very well.

AA: I know that one album could not be easily unbound, and a handful of photographs throughout the albums had silvering issues from age. What was your approach to these physical challenges during digitization of this collection?

What happened is that Marcia sent me some test [images] and scans. Some were just pretty neutral scans how the equipment was able to digitize, and then there were some enhancements. I looked at the enhancements, and what I found even at home doing some digitization on these photos was that, depending on the condition of the photo, that different photos would require different kinds of enhancements to improve them a bit.

Family Photo with Silvering

Image degradation with silvering

Family Photo Edited to Reduce Silvering

Silvering minimized through editing

Another Family Photo with Silvering

Image degradation with silvering

Photo Edited to Reduce Silvering

Silvering minimized through alternate capture angles

AA: How would you say the digital versions of the albums helped you see the collection and its history in a new way?

[Before digitization] I had [only] glanced at these photos. My sister had looked at the albums with my mother to try to identify some of the people [in the photos], and she had stuck little post-it notes on the pages of the album. What I did is remove those notes, keeping track of which photos they were related to, which page they were on. After I received the PDFs [from Anderson Archival], I was able to use a PDF program called Nuance to insert digital comments on the pages. It looks really nice and was much nicer than scanning the post it notes.

Later on, I was looking page by page to make a few notes and understand [for] myself when these photos were taken. Looking at these photos kind of got me interested in going back to some other [historical family] documents I have scanned, to go back and understand what year these events happened. I was able to do that, going back to my digital files, finding dates, and other reference information, and then making small notes on the PDF version of the albums. That was something which I never thought I was going to do, but it kind of evolved out of it. I was giving them something that was as complete and interesting as it could be, so that turned out to be kind of a fun benefit of having the collection digitized.

Family Photo

Family Photo

Family Photo


Family Photo

Family Photo


Back then, the earliest photos were very small and not very crisp. Over the course of the photo albums, you can see the technology improves, the knowledge about how to take a photo and move [the camera] closer [to the subject]. In a way, you’re also seeing the evolution of photography.

AA: I hadn’t thought about it that way, but the movement through time is very apparent when looking at all the albums together. Did you learn anything new about your family from the digital albums?

I knew my grandmother pretty well when I was growing up, because my grandmother lived with my mother and father. It was more of an integrated family situation back then. I knew my grandmother from birth until I left home at 18 years old, but she was always this old grandmother to me. She wasn’t quite as old, really, as I know it now.

Looking back at her photograph album, I see photos of her and her friends with tennis racquets and cameras, in the park, in boats, and taking pictures, which is very much like social media today. I realized when my grandmother was younger, she was quite a hot young woman and her friends [were] very attractive. They were smiling and laughing and having a lot of fun. And I just never thought that about my grandmother until I looked back at these photographs and said, ‘Yeah, they were having a good time. They were having a nice life.’ That was kind of a rediscovery for me.

AA: How do you think your family will use the digital files going forward?

I’ve downloaded all of the digitized content onto my PC, and I purchased some thumb drives to store the files. [Each sibling] can send that thumb drive on to their children, who can also store it on their own electronic devices and have a copy of it. Even if they don’t look at it today, they’ll have it for some time in the future when they do.

AA: Thank you for trusting us with your collection and sharing your story. Is there anything else you’d like to add?

I enthusiastically recommend that people [who] have documents, photographs, or anything else that needs to be organized get in touch with you and see what you can do for them. Everybody’s got a big cache of photo albums. People my age still don’t want to just throw things away without having some copy or some reference to it, so I’m looking forward to telling other people about Anderson Archival and showing them what I’ve received. Hopefully, it’s a solution for some other people to know.

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A variety of sources can be used to answer genealogy questions

Key Documents for Unlocking Your Family History

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Genealogists, whether professional or purely informal, know there is no true replacement for detailed family records and primary source documents. Predecessors with a mind towards preservation end up doing work for their progeny, providing essential names, dates, locations, and the answers to many other burning questions.

But let’s face it, most people researching their family’s exploits don’t have a ready-made cache of answers. And even if they’ve been carefully kept, historical documents may already be damaged beyond use simply because of their age.

Facing meager crumbs or resounding silence, what can the curious researcher do?

Start Your Search with a Firm Foundation

Diving into a family rumor or famous relative might be tempting, especially when you know you want to head towards those answers anyway. However, it is important to start any family research with a detailed account of yourself and your immediate family. As you build your initial database of information, designate any unconfirmed data and tackle each question mark one at a time.

This is also the time to reach out to living family members, both for confirmation of what you already know and for the knowledge—and documentation—they may have that you don’t. You might plan a trip with a portable scanner to capture material from family members who aren’t tech savvy themselves.

Remember that even if multiple family members agree, no point of data can be confirmed without evidence.

Something as fundamental as the spelling of a family name or a middle name can get lost between official record and familial communication. Decades of being called Rose doesn’t make it a legal name. Most genealogists insist on multiple forms of confirmational evidence to mark a point resolved.

As you begin to gather more material, it is important to stay organized. For physical documents, labeled file folders and a paper family tree are helpful. For digital copies, keep a finding aide and use a file structure that makes sense. Keep a master backup of any digital files, but don’t clutter your systems with multiple versions of the same files.

Choose a Focused Destination—Your Genealogy North Star

With a strong foundation in place, it’s time to regroup on the goals you have for your search. This will likely be a long and involved search. Aimlessly collecting anything and everything, while fascinating, could unintentionally hamper progress towards your real goal.

When deciding what to focus on first, consider the types of resources you will have access to. Are there church records you can request or a government archival center you can access? Do you have partial records you can build from? Do you have any names or dates you are certain of that you can start with rather than estimates or rumors that may be more difficult to verify? The answers to these types of questions can help you decide the best path to begin your genealogical hunt.

With your goal in mind, trace a path from what you already have to what you want. Include the details you do know, such as a major migration or any key figures. From there, you can start filling in the blanks.

Sources in the Digital Realm

Whether you dive into those family question marks through a genetics or ancestry service or you prefer to search without any assistance, chances are some—or maybe even all—of your search will take place online. There are many guides and lists showcasing the best online access to vital records, military records, census information, and even immigration data, but make sure to research each service before you subscribe. There is no point paying for something that doesn’t have the kind of documents you need.

Verify names and dates with primary sources whenever possible, and don’t be discouraged if you find conflicting versions of the same information. The further back you go, the more nebulous some of the recorded information can be. Immigrant families may have changed their names when they moved to a new country, making one person seem like two, or birth years may appear slightly different depending on who recorded the information. Remember at each step in your journey to move slowly but surely in the direction of your goal.

If the evidence takes you in a direction contrary to family lore, such as a genetic test that removes the possibility of Native American lineage, it is important to follow what you find, rather than rumor.

Research exhaustively, but don’t get stuck on one person. Confirm all aspects of a person—birth, death, marriage—to paint a complete picture for your records. This may require the help of translators or historic institutions in your community. Don’t be afraid to ask for help. Many times, the staff at archives are happy to help you hunt down property records, marriage certificates, and a plethora of other vital records that can help move you forward on your genealogical journey. Just remember that sometimes the records just aren’t there or you don’t know enough to search effectively. Keep researching what you can and don’t give up. You may come across information later that will help you search for the missing pieces again.

Don’t forget churches! The further back you go the harder it will be to find official records. For many communities, the church was the only place that recorded births, marriages, and deaths. Even if the church no longer exists, the denomination’s central organization may still have those records available.

Each additional piece of information you learn can help fill in other gaps.

Key Documents for Unlocking Your Family History

While you may not have a pile of vital records handy, there may be other key documents already in you or your family’s possession that can send you in the right direction for further research. To fully utilize your personal collection, consider information that could be gained from

For the job of keeping family documents pristine and also accessible, a digitization firm like Anderson Archival could provide essential help in this journey of exploration. Remember, physical copies won’t be around forever—age, continued use, and exposure can lead to deterioration. Too often, destruction of originals comes with the loss of the vital information they contain. If you have a collection that is too valuable to risk losing, give us a call today. We’re ready to help.

 

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Digitized Register for Cayuga Asylum

Adopting Digital Preservation for a Legacy of Caring

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Technology is so engrained in our everyday lives that it can be hard to imagine a time when the only evidence of one’s ancestry was a single handwritten line in an archive across the country. But before the age of virtual records and digital paper trails, this was the only option for some people hunting down their history—or the history of esteemed historical figures.

Anderson Archival sat down with Laurel Bennett, executive assistant at Cayuga Centers, a nonprofit founded in 1852 as a home for destitute children. Over the last 165 years, Cayuga Centers has become not only a temporary support system for children in need, but also an organization that provides every kind of support possible for children and families regardless of circumstance.

This collection also has significance to history on a larger scale, but we’ll let Bennett explain in her own words.

 

AA: Can you tell our readers a little bit about Cayuga Centers’ history and mission?

[Cayuga Centers] started in the early 1860s as an orphanage. Three of the prominent families of Auburn, New York—one of which [were] the Sewards, who you might know through Henry Seward, the secretary of state to Abraham Lincoln. They saw a need for an orphanage so they created one [here].

Over the years, Cayuga Centers evolved into what it is today, which is a nonprofit that is chosen to help children, families, and individuals to grow at home. I’m going to read you our mission: ‘To grow as independent, healthy, and productive citizens through quality counseling, residential, and support services. We do this in partnership with those we serve, as well as government agencies and other social services providers.’

We have programs for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, we have our foster care programs in Florida, Delaware, and upstate New York and New York City, and our biggest program is actually our migrant foster care program for unaccompanied minors that come into the US without an adult. This is a big contract that we have with the Office of Refugee Resettlement.

AA: That’s quite the task list! How did you end up working for Cayuga Centers?

I’ve been here for about a year and a half, and I’m the executive assistant to our president and CEO. What drew me to Cayuga Centers when I first got out of college was that they don’t just provide foster care for these children—they also provide counseling, they provide schooling, they provide any and everything that they need.

Cayuga Centers legacy of caring digitized

Cayuga’s legacy of caring dates far back in history. Image from Cayuga Centers’ collection and used with permission.

[The children] are at a disadvantage when they go through the foster care system, and that’s what really drew me into it. If I had children and somehow they got separated from me, I would want them to go to a Cayuga Centers foster home. For the children that come over the border, we make sure that they’re in a home that speaks their native language as well.

AA: How did you decide to reach out for digitization services?

One of my duties [when] I came into this job [was] to look after our archive, which is located in our headquarters in Auburn, New York. [It’s] this big old library, and before COVID happened, people liked to come in to view the records from back in the orphanage for genealogical purposes. Our staff also likes to look through them because they’re really cool old books. After researching how to properly store these [books] and what we can do to best preserve them, I found Anderson [Archival] and sent them off to be digitized.

AA: When you were looking for a digital preservation vendor to help you with this project, what specific challenges did you know going in that your collection would have?

They’re very fragile. When you look through them, some of the pages are falling out, some of them are torn up, some of them are very faded.

Finding a company that was able to capture the image and make sure it was the best it could [be] was really key for this particular collection.

I was looking at different providers, and you guys fit exactly what we needed. [Anderson Archival’s facilities] have everything in house. We can just send them to you and [know that] you take good care of the books. They are very fragile, they’re from the 1800s. You scan every page and then send us those files for us to keep on file for ourselves. I like that you guys are all in-house and just seem like a good reputable business. And that’s why we chose you.

AA: Did you learn anything new about your collection through digitization?

It’s a lot bigger than we originally thought it was. We see it and where it’s stored, and then seeing all the individual files…there’s so many of them. The books are a lot thicker than they look in real life.

Also, there was a prominent figure in Auburn who was the head of the orphanage, and they actually had an all-female board that ran it, which was very cool and rare for the time. I found that when looking through the old annual reports.

AA: If these books were available for the public to come in and look at, are the newly digitized files something that you’ll be using in that way?

Yeah, sometimes people have to get permission from us to come in to view them. But some people haven’t been able to come in because they’re from all over the country, and they have an ancestor that stayed in the orphanage and they wanted to come here and find their files. Now that they’re digitized, we can find the specific year and the register that their ancestor, parent, or grandparent lived in and can send that to them.

Also, we have staff from multiple locations throughout upstate New York, Delaware, and Florida. Not everyone has been able to come in and view the collection, so we make it available for our staff to be able to look through whenever they have the interest to. That’s something our staff would really like, to be able to see from wherever they are, especially because of COVID. People haven’t been able to travel as much as they used to.

AA: Are there any other ways that you foresee using the digital collection in the future?

One of our books actually has Harriet Tubman in it because she adopted a child who I believe is blind and that’s how she came to live with her and fostered her at home here in Auburn. Just looking through [the collection] one of our staff found [that record], and then we were able to find out that Harriet Tubman was involved in the early history of our agency, which is very cool.

Harriet Tubman appears in the Cayuga Register

Cayuga Centers’ relationship with Harriet Tubman displayed in this record. Identifying names have been redacted. Image used with permission.

It makes sense because Harriet Tubman was very involved with the Seward family and Auburn. I believe they were involved in the founding of the original orphanage, which was [originally] called the Cayuga Asylum for Destitute Children.

We want to think of a way that we can share it on our website, like the Harriet Tubman register or the scrapbook, for more particular interest to the agency and our history. We’re thinking of ways to share them with the public [too].

AA: Can you share any other stories about these personal connections to the past?

[There are a few stories of] people that have come in to view the collection that have been able to see parts of the digitized collection before it was finished. We had a woman whose aunt stayed at the orphanage as a child, and she wanted to try to find everything she could. They were going to the state to try to find her adoption papers and everything. Looking through the books, it was actually very hard to find her because your eyes miss things. But as it was digitized, I was actually able to find the exact page that her aunt was on, and I was able to print and send that page to them because it was digitized. They were out of state, so she was so grateful. Because the image was so clear I was able to print them out a blank one and then I also printed out one where I was able to highlight where she was in the page.

AA: That has to be really special for people, to have that physical manifestation of their ancestor. What other impacts has the digital collection had so far?

Another gentleman came in, and some of his cousins, I believe, stayed [at Cayuga]. He came in and was looking through the books but wasn’t able to find anything. But then, after it got digitized, I was then able to more easily find where they were. He said that he cried because he was so happy he was able to find more about them, because they actually had siblings that also came in through here.

A lot of people come in because they have some sort of family connection to Cayuga. There’s a big cemetery in Auburn where we have a few of the graves of the orphans that unfortunately died from illness when they were staying here, [and it’s] the same place the Sewards are buried, that Harriet Tubman is buried. A few years ago on our 165th anniversary, we had a little ceremony there.

AA: Thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me.

Thanks so much for being interested in us, and thank you guys for doing a great job.

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Digitization captured this hidden love note

Love Letters Over Zoom: Connection in the Time of COVID

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The power of human connection is stronger than ever after such a disruptive year. It’s hard to feel close to loved ones when, over the course of a life, people spread out and go in their own directions. Historical collections can show us that those connections are still powerful and tangible even from afar.

We sat down to talk about this and more with Rosemary Cassie, one of Anderson Archival’s recent clients. Her collection of letters written by her father while he was on a US Navy minesweeper during the Korean war reminded us that the powerful connections we make in our lives can foster new connections, even after we are gone.

Now that the digitization of these love letters is complete, Cassie shares the collection virtually with her entire extended family. The group meets twice a month via Zoom and reads selections from the collection together and discuss the members of their family that left the record of their lifelong love behind.

AA: What’s it been like to be able to share the collection digitally with your entire family?

Since both my parents have passed, these letters were my way of kind of keeping us connected. When you lose the matriarch or the patriarch of a family, there’s really not that pull to stay together.

People don’t think a lot about building that connection with a family that’s dispersed, especially during a pandemic. What a role these letters have played in a time when we haven’t even been able to have a service or a mass for my mom. We’ve been able to have a memorial weekend—memorialized both of them, actually—in a way that probably we wouldn’t have done if we hadn’t been in the middle of a pandemic.

I download every year’s worth of letters from Box, and then share them with the family on Google Drive in small chunks. Then we all get on a Zoom call and discuss. When we’re on a particular letter or theme, I’ll open up to that letter, to that month, and we’ll make comments on it. We always start the call with the letters in mind, and then we always then transition to more things about what’s going on in our own lives, almost like our own video version of the letters.

This is my way of everybody getting the letters. Even some of my family who don’t choose to be part of the Zoom call are reading the letters. All my immediate siblings are participating, but it’s my nieces and nephews who are spread around the world that aren’t as involved. Now they have they have a part of our family’s history that they can keep.

AA: What was unique about the digitization process for this collection?

In addition to the letters themselves, the digitization team would photograph the big front and the back of the envelope for two reasons. The front of the envelopes have the post mark, and the back of the envelope would always have little love notes.

AA: On our end, the process of capturing these details ended up telling us a lot about your mother. She opened the envelopes with a letter opener, and occasionally made notes about the contents of the letter on the envelope itself. I remember the day one of our team members found a hidden love note that, from the way the envelope was opened, she had never seen. When our team member shared that find with the rest of us, we were floored. You can just feel how much love is in all those letters, even in a note that was never seen before.

Both my parents were pretty progressive as a couple. My mom and dad only knew each other three months before they got married, and he shipped out for two years.

Digitized letter on thin paper

The letter writer experiments with a typewriter.

AA: Wow. That’s a strong love, this young love built from three months.

Yeah, and it stayed that way, never veered away from that. I just I wish we had her side of the letters. My dad kept my mothers’ letters, so we only have one part of the story. We’re always trying to figure out, “What did my mom’s say?” But in a way, it kind of makes it more interesting to only have his because then you have to speculate or create your own version of what you think Mom would have said. You have to fill in the gaps like, “Oh, I wonder what made him sick, or what he’s responding to from her last letter.”

My brother and brother-in-law are both ex-Navy men as well. When we’ve talked about my dad mentioning something about the ship or protocols, my brother-in-law and brother will help translate. Later on in the letters, he talks about studying for his certifications. My niece was reading about this study and how my dad was so worried that he wasn’t going to pass. My dad was brilliant. He passed every test. But my niece was like, “I have to get to those parts of the letters.”

AA: She was enthralled with the story! Wow! It is so wonderful that you all can share this intimate collection of love letters. How did it first come into your possession?

I knew the letters existed but didn’t really know where they were and I hadn’t seen them. Since April, my mother had them hidden away. I moved her into my home because of COVID-19, and as her health declined, she really couldn’t speak anymore. Then she passed away, right at the end of April last year.

Photo provided by Rosemary Cassie

This photo of the happy couple was provided by Rosemary Cassie and is used with permission.

AA: They must have meant a lot to her to keep them kept close for so many years. Did she talk about them at all towards the end of her life?

About two weeks before she passed, she kept asking for them. She had a brain tumor, so she was fading fast. What seemed to really make her calmer is whenever the family came to visit, I would pull out the letters and they would read from them. What made me think of wanting to digitize them was everyone asking who will inherit the letters. I’m like, “Well, everybody should have the letters.” It was my daughter-in-law’s idea to find an archivist.

AA: How was the collection stored when it was in your mother’s possession, and what was your approach going forward?

They were in her dresser drawer. Literally in the plastic bags you get when you buy comforters and blankets. They were tied with bows, and they were somewhat in chronological order.

When I was talking with Mark [Anderson, Founding Principal of Anderson Archival] about the project and he was telling me his process, I said, “Well, they’re getting fragile. When you’re done with the letters, instead of folding them back up and putting them in the original envelopes and shipping them back, what do you have to preserve them?”

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The team did some research and what seemed like the most logical solution was to put them in plastic preservation sleeves and preservation boxes. What’s really cool about that is that it’s a binder, so it’s just faster than trying to maneuver to the computer. It’s so nice because when the family gets together, I have them right there.

Digitized handwritten letter

The letter writer imagines his tour to be a pleasure cruise as he spends his days studying.

AA: Have you and your family gained any insights or interesting anecdotes from approaching these letters together?

Oh, my God, yes. It’s so funny. First of all, everyone’s said how my dad’s cursive was very nice. I mean, he’s writing on a ship in pencil, probably in a two-by-two-foot space, and still had beautiful handwriting. About half the people in my family under 30 don’t even know how to read cursive.

And then there’s phrases or terminology that the younger kids don’t even know… A letter mentioned dungarees somewhere, and so my niece asked, “What are dungarees?” Or there was another word that my mom used instead of a dresser, “bureau,” that the younger kids weren’t familiar with.

But I think what we noticed right away was how romantic they are, and how it continued, no matter how long they were married—it was sixty-two years before my dad passed. In addition to the Korean War-era letters, the collection also included two letters that were from the 70s, and one from the 90s. And you wouldn’t even know there was all that much time difference, because they were still in that same tone.

The letters just keep giving us the opportunity to connect. The ability to read them chronologically without the hassle of opening them and unfolding them, and just the fact that we can scale it digitally is the number one benefit.

AA: Is there anything else that you want to share about your collection or the process?

I will just say that clarity is bar none. It’s so nice. The digital versions are much easier to read than the hard copies because you can zoom in there. The end result is so much better than I thought I would get because I’m used to like scanning from my multipurpose printer/scanner. They accommodated for the varying size of each letter and left a border around it so that you didn’t have to worry about [the image being cut off].

I really appreciated when the scanning was done, as you were working to put it together in additional formats, [your team] was very willing to arrange it in a way that would make sense to us. Again, I can’t say enough nice things about how impressed I was with the service and the communication back and forth throughout the project. It was all very professional, and I really appreciate that type of process.

AA: Well, thank you so much for taking the time to talk with us, Rosemary, and allowing us to work on this special collection. It was a pleasure.

That’ll be another topic for my family meeting. I can’t wait.

 

Whether they’re recorded in modern times or generations past, human emotions and connections will always stand the test of time. Do you have a family collection in need of digital preservation? Connect with us today!

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