How our ongoing archiving service can organise generations of clutter into a library of precious memories.
by Huw Steer, Family History Films
Recently, my grandfather passed away. He was a man who seldom threw things away, just in case, and when he died his children spent weeks going through his remaining attics and garages to sort out the ephemera of his long life. They uncovered some wonderful memories - but it took a long time, and they’re far from finished. As my father and I are already rapidly filling sheds of our own with clutter, I’ve already started thinking about how best to arrange it all to spare our descendants a lot of work.
While my family dealt with my grandfather’s archive, at Family History Films we simultaneously undertook an archiving project on an even greater scale. Our client had thousands of photographs and documents from his career and travels around the globe, as well as all the other assets created by a rich and fascinating life. That in itself was challenge enough - but our archive also included the assets of his elderly parents. As my grandfather showed my own family, a couple in their late eighties build up huge numbers of old documents and photographs, among other things. In total we were faced with over forty thousand assets, spread across multiple properties in the United States. It was a formidable task, but our professional and respectful approach left our clients with an intuitive archive they’ve found simple to use - and which is still evolving. With our system, no job is too big - or indeed too small.
Family History Film’s Eve Poppleton hard at work on a recent archive job
You might not have the time to go through all your old papers, but we do - and we can assess your assets and organise them in a way that will actually let you easily access your memories whenever you’d like. Paperwork, photographs, even old VHS cassettes and Super 8s - with our professional archiving service we can turn your boxes of clutter into a physical and digital archive - on a hard drive and in the cloud - that’s easy to navigate. Typically we’ll begin an archive project with a physical visit and assessment of your assets - wherever they are. We’ll take all those boxes you’ve dug out of the loft and shed and sort them into categories - holidays, certificates, etc. - that will make finding what you need that much easier. While we’re with you, it’s always helpful to talk through your memories as we go - who the man in the photograph is, or which house this deed belongs to - to give us the context we need. The idea of our service is to ensure that your memories can outlast those who made them, so that your descendants can properly experience their family’s history. The best way to start building that history is with you.
Physical or digital - we have ways of organising any asset. Even outdated media formats are no problem. From floppy discs to VHS tapes - everything will be handled with care as we organise and digitise it into a comprehensive index. The physical and digital archives will match perfectly: you’ll be able to locate what you need on your digital index instead of searching through stacks of boxes.
The digital version of your archive will be stored both on hard drives and in the cloud. With the cloud, it’s simple to not only access your existing assets but to for us to add and organise new ones. Our recent clients have been regularly sending us new material - photographs of recent weddings, parties, and all manner of events well worth remembering - and we’ve added it all to their archive. You’ll never stop making new memories - and our ongoing service means we never have to stop preserving them for you and your descendants in years to come.
If you’d like to consult us about archiving your precious memories, contact us at paul@myfamilyhistoryfilm.com.