> I recently inherited an old photo album with pictures and documents > glued onto the pages. I've tried steam, etc., to get them off, but > with no luck! I can see some writing on the back of the photos, > which will identify some ancestors. Does anyone have ideas on how I > can get these items off the pages? > > Lorraine <Landmoffat@aol.com> Kind of depends on HOW old the pictures are and when they were glued down. Try one of these and then the other, in whichever order seems least "dangerous" to you. Both require EXTREME patience and copious amounts of time for miniscule progress over a lengthy period. Both DO work, eventually. Put the album in the deep-freeze for several weeks to several months. The idea is to make the glue freeze/expand enough to chip off when you try to lift a photo. To lift the photo, you want a PLASTIC spatula or a PLASTIC stick with a sharp edge. When the page and the photo are good'n'cold, see if you can slide the sharp edge of the plastic between the photo and the paper. Retreat; try again; retreat. If the page or the photo reaches room temperature, return to freezer for a few hours before trying again. Or -- if you don't care about preserving the album itself -- heat your oven to 250 TURN OFF THE HEAT! and place the album inside; when the oven has cooled to room-temp, remove album, re-heat over, turn off heat, return album. (Process intends to DRY OUT the glue, so it will chip and crack off). Use that same thin-edged plastic implement as above. SOME people feel this damages the photograph and they're probably right, but so does leaving it glued down to a 1940s-era sheet of paper with mucilage. Once you've taken the bother of either process though, don't be surprised to find such useful inscriptions as "Chris' babies" or "Dan's great-grandmother." If anyone in MY family ever wrote "John Jacob Jingleheimer, with wife Dora on left, mother Sally on right, and (left to right) George, James, and Mary-Alice; taken at Sally's home --1312 Main Street, Tupelo, KS -- at 2pm Sunday March 25 1902" on a photo, I've never found the photo. (g) Cheryl singhals@erols.com