52 Ancestors Week 19: Preserve

 From Amy Johnson Crow: Week 19

The theme for Week 19 is "Preserve." We preserve a lot as genealogists: papers, stories, history itself. There is also the tasty kind of "preserve." (Now I'm hungry for some strawberry jam on fresh-baked bread.) What have you or your ancestors preserved?

All 75 issues of Marvel's "New Warriors" Volume 1 (1990-1996)
bagged and in near-mint condition!

    As a comic reader I know how important it is to preserve the thnigs you want to keep for posterity. I have boxes and boxes of comics like the one this week's banner. I put the comics in special plastic bags and stored them all in a nice, dry spot for safekeeping. That box of "New Warriors" goodness up there is just the tip of the iceberg! I have comics from as far back as the 1970s and 1980s in my collection, too. Are they worth anything? It's hard to say. The sentimental value alone is through the roof!

    On the genealogical front, I've tried to employ the same tactics I've been using in the thirty plus years I spent collecting and reading comics. I keep the things I want in safe places and toss out the things I could probably do without. Sorry, grandpa Hamel. Your golf magazines had to go!  It was either that or your grandfather Eugene's antique glasses! I needed to prioritize!! Eh, I don't think he'd have minded me tossing them to be honest. The magazines! Not the glasses! Let's be clear here! 

    Comics and eyewear aside, I have a veritable treasure trove of things in my possession that I've preserved. I could probably open a museum with the toys from the 1980s alone! Though, I don't think they'd be anywhere near minty fresh. Sometimes the battles between the Autobots and the Decepticons got a little.....uhhh....heated.

Vincenzo and his second wife,
Fortuna

        Sadly, there are several things my ancestors had that could never be preserved such as my Italian great-grandfathers' wine collection. Those were likely gone by the mid 1970s.  As discussed before both Giuseppe Carrabs and Vincenzo Ferraiolo made their own wine. The quality depended on the wine producer and my father said on multiple occassions that Giuseppe's brother Rocco made the strongest batch of all! Somehow I believe that.

    I admit it can be hard to preserve wine. Wine only gets better with age so I can't really fault Vincenzo's second wife Fortuna from having her fair share of the liquor after her husband passed away in 1970. It must have been pretty good wine if she kept it all those years. Perhaps it was a way to remember him? I only wish that she kept a bottle of the stuff just so I can say we preserved a bottle of "Chateau Ferraiolo 1963".  I could have made a label and everything and no one would have known the difference! Even a bottle of "Barlett Street Vino" from Giuseppe would have been great! Dare to dream. The bottles would be great conversation starters. Instead we have a collection of antique coke bottles! Win some ya lose some!

    Luckily I have many other things from Vincenzo that I've preserved. Remember the toolbox full of genealogical gold? That's in a nice dry spot in the cellar. Whenever the basement floods, we make sure that it and the other items of genealogical value are kept nice and dry. So far so good! Though, it does help that Vincenzo's box is on a dresser and my grandparents' things are on a table.

Giuseppe and Clementina

In the end, it's probably a good idea to worry more about what you can preserve and not so much the stuff that can be eaten or drank. Those things naturally don't have staying power. That's why I tend to go to great lengths to preserve photographs like this one of Giuseppe and his wife Clementina. 

    For pictures I try to scan what I can so I can either put them here in the blog or put them up on WikiTree or Ancestry. Our pictures are already in really safe locations so I tend to scan them at my leasure. I'm in no hurry to get every picture I have scanned. That would take forever and a day and I learned a long time ago that scanning and editing pictures can take ages! Especially if you're scanning a comic book. I also back up the scans on a zip drive along with all the other genealogical documents I've accumulated. I've even printed out a few and put them in a special folder!

    Pictures aren't the only things I want preserved for safekeeping. In our archive we have ye olde home movie reels. These home movies are strips showing my father, his cousins and his maternal grandparents live and in black and white circa the 1950s/1960s. I swear when I saw them for the first time the "Wonder Years" theme popped in my head. 

Need a clip of them waiting for the
bus!

  The videos themselves are basically of my father and everyone having a great time together in Haverhill. There are no sounds so I can't hear what my great-grandparents sounded like. Oh, man. That would have been so cool. Still, the videos are good and I would totally put the clips to music if I could. Perhaps some era appropriate tunes would do the trick? Where are those Beach Boys songs?

 There are definitely ways to preserve the videos and I will definitely get on that once I have time. What I plan to do is convert them to a video format and store them on the zip drive along with the other things. In fact, I should probably dust off my editing software and make one BIG video out of everything!  Sure it'll take a while to render. But, it'll be worth it. I have the technology! I can also burn it on a DVD and everything!

    Preserving things take time and you always want to make sure you preserve the things you want and the things you need. This is true for both genealogy and of course collecting comics. Do these collect dust? Oh, yes! That's the least of your worries. If you have the things you want, you'll be sure to take good care of your archive. Our stuff is safe and secure and will remain well preserved for many years to come! Now to get started on transferring reels to digital!

See ya next time!