Thanks to all who chimed and offered ideas. You have given me thought for my own research, but I need something practical for my friend. Obviously since she is not interested in genealogy asking her to input the information on rootsweb, or donating it to a library is not an option for her. What she is looking for is either "permission" to get rid of a bunch of the stuff or some help on deciding what to keep. What she needs is a professional organizer who specializes in genealogy that could help her sort through the stuff and tell her what to do with it all. They would have to be knowledgeable in what types of repositories are out there that she could donate information to and skilled in determining if the information her mother collected is in a form the repository wants. (Hey, this could become the next niche job!) Any ideas if such a person exists? Or where they can be found? One of the things I was thinking about doing with my own research is to condense into something patable my family would enjoy and relate to. There is a fabulous digital scrapbooking site (there are several but this is my favorite) called _www.picaboo.com_ (http://www.picaboo.com) . It is my goal to scan old photos into my computer and make a photo album about my ancestors. I am not contemplating anything heavy duty with citations and such, but lots of pictures with captions and the basics of the pictured with their name, birth, marriage and death dates. The great thing about this site is that once you have entered the information you can order a hardbound, thin volume of the book that won't take up too much space on a book shelf. The other advantage of a digital scrapbook is that you can e-mail the book to others. (It's also a good way to get those pictures of your last vacation into a "photo album" !) Does anyone have any other ideas? Alyce C Traverso Walnut Creek, CA In a message dated 4/6/2008 10:05:31 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time, ron@sfgenealogy.com writes: Alyce, Yes, that's an interesting dilemma. I would love to hear what others have done to insure their family's legacy. My wife and I try to encourage the younger generations of the family to get interested in genealogy. But, it can be frustrating waiting for the bug to strike them. :) I would think the one main option is to "publish" a book, and donate copies to the various genealogy repositories. This, of course, costs money. But, at least the research would be out there somewhere. One free option is to put as much as possible the information onto the internet in a free area. I don't know how long rootsweb.com will stay free, but geocities <http://geocities.yahoo.com/> has been around for quite awhile. If it was me, I would publish it on a number of different free web sites. Then, I would get the internet archive to capture them <http://www.archive.org/about/faqs.php>. One thing I probably wouldn't do is try to donate the material that isn't organized or summarized. Unless it was for someone famous, I don't know if anyone really wants to take the time to do it for them. My two cents worth, Ron > Date: Sat, 5 Apr 2008 23:47:33 EDT > From: AlyceTrave@aol.com > Subject: [CASANFRA] What do you do when a genealogist dies? > To: CASANFRA-L@rootsweb.com > > I was hoping this group might know of a book or article on this particular > problem as all family historians will be facing it one day (or at least our > descendants will be!) I was talking to a friend today whose mother was the > family historian and genealogist. She had traced both her mother's and father's > family lines back to the Civil War and beyond. When she died she left all > of her hard won research behind to children who do not share her passion for > genealogy and are overwhelmed by the volume of stuff. Of course my friend was > suffering pangs of guilt because she didn't want to throw it all out but I > could tell she didn't want to keep all of it either. Of course as a family > historian myself, even without seeing what she has, I know that there is > important research that some descendant some time in the future will find > valuable. Plus there may be others out there searching the same family lines that > will find the research valuable. Is there a "Goodwill" for genealogical > research that she could donate her mother's research to? > > Her dilemma made me think of all my research neatly filed away in my file > cabinet and in archival boxes in my closet. Will I end up burdening my > children with too much stuff that they won't know what do with? Perhaps now is the > time to decide how we want our descendents to dispose of it or try to > condense it down into a manageable size. I am sure other family historians have > faced this same problem so there must be a good solution, and if not maybe we > can put our creative brains together and comes up with one. > > Alyce C Traverso > Walnut Creek, CA > ************************** Visit SFGenealogy.com! http://www.sfgenealogy.com ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to CASANFRA-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message **************Planning your summer road trip? Check out AOL Travel Guides. (http://travel.aol.com/travel-guide/united-states?ncid=aoltrv00030000000016)