Sorting Saturday: Starting to Arrange Family Papers

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Today's Sorting Saturday post is about organizing your family papers. It's a big topic, so I'll post on this for the next few Saturdays.   Librarians catalog, but archivists arrange and describe. Archivists nearly always work with original records, not photocopies or printouts. When they arrange and describe collections, they work from the general to the specific, working toward collections of paper or photos at a folder level. It's common to get bogged down and obsess about individual pieces of paper at the start, but it's more helpful to think about your family collection as a whole. So for today let's start by thinking about the kinds of records you might find in your family's papers.  1. Personal Papers, including:     Artwork and drawings     Audio or written anecdotes and reminiscences     Birth announcements     Diaries and journals     Ephemera, such as bookmarks, invitations, tickets     Family and personal correspondence     Fraternal associations     Funeral cards     Memoirs     Migration records     Motion pictures     Newspaper clippings     Postcards     Photo albums     Photographs     Political affiliations     Student work     Report cards and diplomas     Scrapbooks     Slides     Travel accounts     Vital records     Wills, trusts and probate records 2. Professional or Business Records, including:     Banking and financial paperwork     Bills of sale     Correspondence     Honors and awards     Ledgers     Legal records     Marketing records     Notebooks     Payroll records     Photographs     Political affiliations     Professional organizations     Research files     Résumés and vitas     Teaching notes     Volunteer and charitable records 3. Family records, including:     Bibles or other religious items     Ephemera     Family photographs     Family reunion records     Group correspondence (“round robin” letters) Do you have other items in your family papers that you have questions about? Feel free to ask in the comments section. And tune in next Saturday for some tips about arrangement and storage of your family's original records.