2024 #52 Ancestors #Week19 - Preservation

When I saw this prompt, thoughts immediately went to my maternal grandma's strawberry freezer jam. I can't write much about that, except to say that it was a delicious treat, that I miss it - yes, I know I could learn to make it - and that I have a strawberry tattooed on my right arm in her memory.

I confess to being more than a bit obsessed with family photos (the older the better) and I spend most evenings chatting with my lovely Cuzzin, not always solely about genealogy but at least mentioned almost every day. I enjoy the research, the "hunt" as it were, more than most other hobbies or genealogically related tasks, and I enjoy sharing what I've learned.

The chore of preserving the "finds" properly never ends, and I am still learning to site my sources. This is a significant learning curve when one web link or note noted down 20 years ago leans to many a rabbit trail and too often, few actual discoveries.

I plan to leave everything to my youngest daughter, who shares my interest, and anything that she doesn't care to keep can be donated to the library or historical society. In that interest, getting scraps of paper and their sources documented properly, photos sorted and labelled and everything in some semblance of order is extremely important, as well as making sure much of this is digitized. This is a project I thought I might make some headway on this year, but it hasn't worked out that way quite yet. Binders and boxes and piles, oh my!

Meanwhile, I'll keep recording bits and pieces here until the heavy lifting gets a bit more traction!