Hi Eva, Just my 2 cents. If you decide to use a computer database to log what you find, you may want to think about a numbering system. For example, All my family papers, photographs ect. are filed in sheet protectors and hanging binders. Red for mom's side Blue for dad's. I just put them in the way I received them with a unique number ie. Gil_Doc 00001 or Gil Photo 00001. These numbers go into a database with descriptions. If I use a document for a source I reference that number in my working citation. This makes it extremely easy to go right to the document. I don't have to think about family groups or individuals just which side of the family. If the document has 10 people on it no problem no thinking about which family I just pull the document because I filled it by a number and not a family or name. Ann In a message dated 07-Nov-12 12:59:25 US Mountain Standard Time, faeriejem@gmail.com writes: Hi Eva, Your timeline will depend on just how much material there is and how organized you want it to be. The first thing you do is survey all the material and see what is actually there. What family groups are represented? Do it appear that anything is already organized in any way or is it all haphazardly stored in boxes? More importantly, are there any items that look to have mold, mildew or insect damage? If so, SEPARATE these from everything else immediately. Once you have an idea of what you have, you start the actual organizing (or in archives speak, arranging). You mentioned organizing everything by family group. The survey should have given you an idea of how specifically to break people/records into groups. Write down your plan of how to do that and follow it through the arranging (if you change or augment the plan, keep track of how). As you move records into the different groups, use a notebook or laptop to keep track of what records are going in what family group (this will be your index, or in archives speak, finding aid). Usually, like materials are physically kept together (e.g. paper documents, photographs, albums, material objects) within each family grouping. This part is what takes the longest amount of time. If you have less time, you can simply move everything into new boxes and write on each box what is inside. >From your description of how much material is there, I would not start by buying archival quality document cases and polypropylene sheets. Unless you have a huge budget, this will break the bank. Instead, get archival file folders (letter and/or legal size, depending on your needs) and paper photo envelopes in various sizes (you can write descriptions on the envelope and store one or more photos in each) from Demco, Gaylord, or Hollinger Metal Edge. Get bankers boxes from the local office supply store. The best thing you can do for archival storage is to store everything is a cool, dry place with no direct sunlight (NOT the basement, attic or non-temperature controlled storage unit). This will preserve everything so that as you are able to, you can buy document cases or records cartons (archival quality banker's boxes). You might want to invest in some drop-front boxes for each scrapbooks at some point. You do not need to cite each item separately. At the beginning of the index, state that everything came from storage at X place in X persons' possession as well as the date. If you know where specific items came from before they were in your grandparent's possession, then you can notate that later in the body of the index or at the end. You mentioned have photographs that cross multiple family groups. One way I have seen this dealt with is to organize the paper records and photographs in different ways. Do the paper by family group and the photos by whatever way makes sense - family group, couple, era, place, etc. Best, Jennifer Shaw (archivist) On Wed, Nov 7, 2012 at 11:46 AM, Eva Goodwin <edwgoodwin@gmail.com> wrote: > Does anyone here do professional work in the family/estate > archiving/organizing arena? > > My grandfather, 94, is dying of bone cancer and probably only has a few > weeks left to live and my grandmother has dementia and will likely not live > much longer than him. In their storage, they have over a dozen boxes of > original family papers (letters, records, scrapbooks, diaries, military > papers, official vital documents, you name it they have it) and photos > (both in albums and just loose) - but *all* of it is in utter chaos and > totally disorganized. It actually hurts me to open the boxes and look in > them because of both the lack of order and the lack of decent care for > these items - some of them date back to the early 1800s. > > (Why haven't these been sorted through and archived earlier? My grandmother > is fiercely, fiercely protective of them and does not like anyone looking > at them for fear of us taking them away from her or ruining them or losing > them, etc. Her failing mental capacities have meant that for the past > decade she's just been grasping at what she still has.) > > Now, though, suddenly everyone is in a panic about these photos and > documents and what we will do with them and how we will identify them if my > grandparents die. So they've enlisted me to help. > > This isn't the usual work that I do - normally I do research - but I would > like to approach this in a way I would approach a paying client. I would > like to give my family a proposal and a project plan. (They will be paying > me for this.) My question is, how have others approached this kind of > project? On what kind of timeline? With what kind of billing procedures? > > My plan right now, loosely, is to purchase a few dozen archival quality > document and photo boxes and a few hundred polypropylene archival quality > clear sheet protectors and start organizing everything, paper by paper, > into family group. But how do I do this without getting totally bogged > down? Do I start with the broad sorting triage and then go back to do > citations and descriptions of individual documents? Do I create an index > along the way? Difficulties I imagine encountering: unidentifiable > documents and photos; documents that cross different family groups; sheer > volume of material being too much to archive in individual sheet > protectors; and I'm sure other difficulties I'm not yet imagining. > > Any words of wisdom in terms of project planning? Also could use some > insight into billing for this - by the hour? How long should I imagine this > might take? Should I bill in stages? (I.e., "Phase I" will bill this much, > further phases billed separately?) > > Help! > > Thank you :) > > Eva