How to Preserve Your Family History Like an Archivist

Updated 11:30 a.m. August 11

Do you have a stack of old family photo albums in the attic? A cookbook by your grandmother, scrawled with her handwritten notes? Your parents’ love letters to each other that you treasure?

If so, consider yourself in possession of your family’s unique archives — and there are multiple tools and resources out there to help you preserve these important documents and memories.

“Cultural heritage is incredibly important to our society,” said Elise Hochhalter, a book conservator at the San Francisco Public Library. “Preserving physical collections and digital collections is part of how we tell our stories as a culture.”

Earlier this year, SFPL held a workshop on safeguarding your family’s archives to mark Preservation Week: a national initiative from the American Library Association that’s chaired this year by Bay Area librarian Mychal Threets. San Francisco resident Jim Fong attended the SFPL workshop, citing his interests in making documentaries. He made one in honor of his mother, screening it during her funeral.

Fong stressed the importance of not waiting to start preserving your family’s history.

For a project like his, “if you don’t have the source material from the early days, there’s nothing that you can count on,” Fong said. “So if anybody wants to make a documentary on their own life, or their family life, you have to start now.”

The longer you wait to gather and preserve these kinds of documents, “you’re just missing out on all the family memories that you like,” Fong said.

Wondering whether it’s “worth” taking action to preserve your own family’s archives? SFPL’s Hochhalter has a message for you: Something “may seem inconsequential or not substantial enough, but it actually is.”

“Community archiving is a really important thing,” she said. “Things that happen outside of the institution — and in your family — do have value.” And when it comes to your own family, “you never know what will have value in 50 years, or what will help be evidence to fill in pieces of a puzzle later on,” Hochhalter said.

KQED spoke to experts on how to best preserve documents, digitize records and how best to connect with organizations who may be interested in your archives.

How can I safely store these physical materials?

The American Library Association’s own guide to preservation emphasizes that people shouldn’t let “the pursuit of perfection be an obstacle to getting started.”

“Step one is just getting an overview of everything that you have: Collecting all of your materials, collecting the shoe boxes, the various closets’ worth of things,” said Emilie van der Hoorn, the head of the SFPL’s conservation unit.

Your next step will be assessing how and where each kind of material you’ve collected — paper, photos, books, etc. — should be stored, to preserve its life (more on this below). Make sure your hands are clean or wear gloves when handling your items generally.

SFPL recommends you create an inventory of your collection and regularly update it as you add more items. But stay realistic and don’t get overwhelmed, van der Hoorn said. “Don’t anticipate that you’re going to have everything digitized, cataloged, housed, and looking like the Library of Congress in a week.”

This is long-term work, she stressed, and “takes years to work on” — so “set yourself very small, manageable goals.”

Where should materials live in my home?

Store paper items like letters and folders in a clean part of your home, somewhere free from extreme temperatures, humidity or dust. This is why the ALA suggests archives should not be stored in basements or attics, even though you might assume collections like these might naturally be housed in such locations.

Be wary of areas with wild temperature swings, cautioned SFPL book conservator Savannah Adams. “You don’t want [the storage environment] to be getting really hot and really cold,” she said. “That could be worse than just it being in a consistently hot environment.”

Prevent mold by storing materials in a place with humidity levels below 60% (you can purchase a low-cost humidity sensor to monitor this) and where items aren’t touching the ground. Jump to: What to do if materials get wet.

Be sure to check on your materials once in a while to make sure everything is still in good condition.

How can I store papers?

Keep loose paper items in folders, SFPL said — and label everything with what’s inside.

Folders can then be stored in office file folders, plastic tubs or bank boxes. You can upgrade and get professional archival equipment from suppliers like Gaylord Archival, Archival Products, University Products and Hollinger Metal Edge.

SFPL also suggests you avoid using Post-it notes, paper clips, staples, rubber bands or tape, which could damage your materials.

What about photos?

If you write on the back of photos and documents, be sure to include the full names of people involved, places and dates. Use a pencil, since pens can bleed and fade.

Photos can be extra sensitive in storage, so make sure any folders you’re using have passed the Photographic Activity Test — that is, that they’re made of material less likely to damage negatives and delicate photos. (Yes, some photo albums do pass.)

How can I store books?

Not every book you preserve needs to be a first edition, and can be anything that has sentimental value to you personally.

“It could be your favorite cookbook,” Adams said. “It could be a stack of paper that your grandmother wrote on, and you want to preserve that just for handwriting’s sake.”

Books specifically should be stored in an upright position or flat on the side — but never slumped or leaning to one side, Adams said. “Books are largely made up of organic material, so they will eventually start to deform based off what position they’re stored in for long periods of time,” she said. You can prevent this by using bookends.

Be careful also how you take books off a shelf, Adams said. Pull from the middle of the spine, rather than from the top of the book: that upper part of the spine can be particularly vulnerable, especially if it’s a leather-bound book.

Dusting and tidying your books and shelves will also help prevent damage as well, Adams said. “The accumulation of dust that sits on the surface can actually become abrasive, depending on how long it’s there or what it’s sitting on,” she said — and dust can also be a food source for pests.

What to do with water damage

If your materials get wet, move them quickly: Mold settles after 48 hours in wet and humid conditions. Fan out the pages of wet books and stand them on their edge to dry out.

If there is mold on your items, wear PPE like masks and goggles while you contain and quarantine the materials. At this point, you may need to contact a professional conservator to figure out options for restoration.

The American Institute of Conservation also has several guides on storing other physical materials, including ceramic and glass objects, metal items like jewelry, textiles and clothing and furniture.

“There’s some importance to keeping tangible objects and sentimental materials in good condition,” Adams said. And a lot of that really just has to do with preventative care.”

How can you digitize your personal archives?

After you’ve safely organized and stored your materials, making digital copies of these items where possible will reduce how much your originals get handled, lowering the potential for damage. It’ll also allow you to more easily share your collection with other family members and people online.

You can digitize items like:

• Documents, like letters
• Photographs
• VHS videotapes
• Floppy disks
• Super 8 film
• Slides
• Photo negatives
• Audiocassettes
• CDs

Digitizing materials can be a time-consuming process, so remember: you don’t have to do it for every single item you’re archiving.

As for where to store these materials digitally, cloud-based options include Google Cloud Storage, Apple’s iCloud, Mega, pCloud, Synology, NextCloud and Plex.

But Jackie Forsyte, audio-visual archivist with Teach Archive Preserve Exhibit in Los Angeles, emphasized on KQED Forum that the cloud is “just somebody else’s computer … not this nebulous ‘in the air’ thing.”

So if you are worried about the privacy of your items, you can also create your own backup system using hard drives – something that you exercise more control over.

“Take a moment and assess what photos and videos are most important to you that are on your iPhone,” recommended Forsyte, then those  items “to a physical device as a backup for that larger thing,” she said. “You’re not going be able to download everything, but having just those beautiful choices of what matters to you is essential.”

Consider following the “3-2-1 Rule,” which sees you make three copies of each item: for example, one copy stored in the cloud, another on a hard drive and the third saved as a backup in a different geographical location, for safety.

Wherever you store items digitally, be sure to come up with an easy-to-follow and descriptive file-naming practice, so you can find documents after some time.

The Library of Congress has a thorough guide detailing the at-home digitizing process, including how best to scan your items and the recommended digital formats in which you should save materials.

You can also seek help digitizing your materials – especially if you are worried about damage – from organizations including:

• DIY Digi Lab in San Francisco
• Bay Area Video Coalition Media in San Francisco
• Digital Revolution in San Francisco
• Sunset Media Preservation in San Francisco
• Memento Press in Oakland
• Analog to Digital in Oakland
• Audio Video Workshop in Redwood City
• Denevi Digital Imaging in Sunnyvale
• Digital Roots Studio in Albany.

Your local library may also have a “memory lab” to help you archive materials.

Remember, digital archives aren’t always confined to scans of analogue items. Consider also archiving sentimental materials that were born digitally.

For example, your voicemails would likely need to be re-saved as a .MP3 or .WAV file. Files can be saved as PDFs, and data as a .CSV document. Use a website crawler like the Wayback Machine and Preservica to save websites and social media posts, which you can also export as a WARC file. Want to archive meaningful emails? You can store these messages through MailStore or export them from your account as a .mbox file.

Don’t forget about archiving digital photos either, SFPL’s van der Hoorn said: “It’s easy to overlook what you have on your phone, in your old drives.”

And keep in mind: a major part of digital preservation is knowing that something widely used today may be obsolete tomorrow, said Forsyte.

“Keep an eye on that technology, to really make informed and empowered choices about how you store things,” she said. “And be ready to migrate to the next thing.”

More resources for starting a family archive

• Preservation Week’s webinar on Disaster Preparedness and Planning
• Library of Congress and Preservation
• Library of Congress and Digital Preservation 
• American Institute for Conservation 
• National Archives
• Conversator Center for Art and Historic Artifacts
• Sustainable Heritage Network
• American Library Association
• Regional Alliance for Preservation
• Find a professional conservator.

Think: Could your family archives be valuable more widely?

Maybe a family member lived through a notable period of history. Or perhaps you are part of an underrepresented community that you want to help build its own historical collections.

If this is the case, you could consider donating your items to a library, local historical society, museum or archive. You can also donate physical materials to online platforms like the San Francisco-based Internet Archive.

The decline in many areas of archiving online might also spur you to share your family’s collection in pursuit of a bigger cause. According to the Pew Research Center, “a quarter of all webpages that existed at one point between 2013 and 2023 are no longer accessible,” as lawsuits threaten the Internet Archive’s work.

And at the federal level, agencies have been rapidly scrubbing visual and written references to people from historically marginalized communities from government websites, including women, people of color and LGBT+ communities — as the White House has attacked diversity, equity and inclusion curriculums in schools.

Thinking about donating materials? Reach out to an organization first to see if they can even accept them, and if so, how they accept donations.

Think: Whose information is this?

Donating archives relating to other people can frequently raise issues of copyright — and privacy.

The GBLT Historical Society in San Francisco’s Castro district reminds potential donors that they “share a responsibility with archival staff” about whose privacy you might inadvertently be affecting by sharing family archives (for example, around a person’s medical history or their out status.)

The logistics of donating your archives

The Blackivists, an archival organization dedicated to Black American history, recommends that you always research any organization you’re thinking about donating to. Do your materials fit their mission? Are they even looking for donations right now? Do they have “a history of building community-based relationships and preserving their materials?”

Make sure you can answer questions about your collection, like:

• Who created the materials?
• What types of materials are you donating? What are the formats or file types?
• When were these items created?
• Where and how is the material currently being stored?
• Why do you consider your materials to be important or significant?

Intent, trauma and care

As The Blackivists’s guide notes, many communities are underrepresented in archival collections, including people of color, religious minorities and people experiencing homelessness — and that your materials could be “reflective of an important moment in history,”

Because of that, the organization said, “They should be given to a repository that will be a good steward of what you’ve captured.”

But you shouldn’t rush yourself, either. “There is potential trauma and grief attached to materials, and it may be too difficult and challenging to grapple with right now,” the Blacktivists’ guide said. “You can donate materials when you’re ready. Or not at all.”