O/T Family Heirlooms

I am gathering a lot of old pictures and other family stuff, including a Bible my grandmother gave my grandfather in 1897. I have the most interest in my immediate fmily, but I'm not sure who might be interested after I'm gone. How do you guys distrubute heirlooms?

Larry

Just don't leave it to one member to do it after your gone. Have a brother that got all the family pictures that where supposed to get divided up at a later date. Now he says when He is gone you can come to his funeral and get them. Pretty sure his wife will trash them the day after he is in the ground. The last get together he had some copies made of my grampa in his uniform from the Spanish American war. He wanted to sell the copies.

MSD the truth is he doesn't want them either but really don't know what to do with them but doesn't want to give up control of dividing them up amongst the family. It's a control thing from my point of view.

Spread them around. My sister got them all put them in her cellar and cellar got flooded

When we were getting ready to burn down the old house on my grandparents farm, we found a lot of old pictures. None of the pics were identified and there wasn't anyone alive that knew those people so we just let them get burned in the fire.

Strongly suggest if there are any pics that you want passed on when you are gone, list the people that are in the pics so the next generatin can have a connection.

There's always somebody interested. My cousin has quite a few pictures that belonged to a couple of generations. I had her make copies of some for me. Her nephew has a some,has my great grandads glasses and a few other things like that. I hope to get a bunch of my mother's pictures when she's gone if they can be found. I've got a lot of old papers from way back.
Just ask around. I'll bet somebody in the family will want them. Once that stuff's gone,nobody will ever be able to get it back.

In just the last six months or so I went through all the picture boxes and packaged up the pictures that I felt should go to my living Aunts, Uncles and cousins. Some were sent to a local school for upcoming reunions and so forth.Some were sent to family friends as they were of their parents and other relatives. These are pictures and momentos that are very important to parts of our extended family. Many are wedding picks of family and friends some of simple farm life. Many of the picks we thought were important enough to have copies made and sent out. The point is share these things, if left too long they are lost as has been said. Many of the pictures were of people we knew as kids growing up and my son never met them. We also tried to do some labeling as to who they were or at least thought they were.
Angle Iron

Larry, I'm working on that exact same thing right now. We inhereted a big box of pictures from my wife's grandparents (wife was only grandchild, and her parents are gone) and many of them were not labeled. After asking all of the old timers in the neighborhood, we have them about 95% identified, and had a blast doing it. Lots of good stories went along with each ID. It worked out good, because the family has been rooted in a 10 mile circle for 175 years. It got us interested in her family history, and we're documenting that also. My two sons are getting mildly interested, enough to recognize the names of their long dead ancestors. In this modern world, it's easy and cheap to give everyone a copy, providing they're interested, of course.

For the bible - I copied the "family" pages from my grandmother's bible and distributed them to all of my siblings. They all flat out stated that they did not want to be responsible for the old bible, but they do appreciate the family history written in it. Just today I transcribed and scanned the family notes from my wife's great-grandfather's bible (born in 1863). I'm e-mailing the info to my sons, and they each have a folder they store them in. Surely all three houses won't burn at once, ha!

Good luck, and have fun with it!

Paul

Dad had a whole box full of family photos. I begged him for years to write on the backs who it was, but he never did. After he died my brother and I finally threw away 2/3 of them that we couldn't identify, then divided them. I did write on the ones I kept who it was, but we lost a lot of family history. Dad had about 10 years of winters to go thru them, but he didn't and what he knew is now lost as he was the last of his and Moms siblings.

Thanks for all the advice and input. One thing I want to do is make a photo display for my granddaughters from their kids through as many pictures as I can find of their great grandparents and beyond for Christmas. Should be an interesting record of changing fashions.

My sister has some pictures too that she is letting me use to make copies.

Larry

Anything I had has been given to my sister. I am not interested in family pictures or family history, never was close to my family growing up.

I think you nailed it on the head.

Consider checking with your local historical society. They may have files on your family, and I know ours had a Bible collection on file. Be sure to label anyone you can identify.

I spent a bit of time as a boy with my great grandmother.I have her rocking chair that she bought second hand almost 100 years ago.Also have her copy of Pleasant Valley and Malabar Farm.There are 2 grandchildren coming this year so the old rocker will be pressed into service again.