What matters most
A paper's value for reconstructing history is determined not by its content, but by its context: can you tell who, where, and when? A touching letter without a date or signature says something about feelings and almost nothing about the people involved.
- Dated document with names
- Photo with caption
- Letter with envelope address
- Unnamed photo
At the top are the items that give you a starting point for searching archives: certificates, official records, employment records, and letters with addresses. At the bottom are the most numerous and most difficult items: photos that no one is left to explain. Usually, this bottom layer is the thickest part of the box.
How to sort through it
Don't throw anything away. Even receipts and postcards contain addresses and dates. Decide what's valuable later, not during your first look.
Photograph everything. Paper, especially photographs, keeps deteriorating. Making a copy takes one evening and removes the risk completely.
Ask older relatives right away. While there's still someone to show the photos to, have them identify the people in them. This is the only step you can't put off.
Use pencil on the back. Use a soft pencil and don't press hard. Ink can show through on the front and ruin the photo.
The third step matters more than the others, and it's the one people put off. The people who can recognize faces in the photos pass away before anyone gets to the box, and after that, recovering the names is almost impossible.
What you can read without names
Even an unnamed photograph tells you a lot. Clothing dates the photo to within a decade, the setting suggests the family's means, and a studio stamp points to the city. Specialists date old photographs by their paper, format, and type of print.
Household records are a category of their own. A notebook of expenses may seem boring, but it's priceless: it shows what people ate, how much it cost to live, and when times became difficult. These notebooks are usually the first things thrown away, dismissed as junk.
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Sources
- Dating old photographs by print type, format, and studio stamp is standard archival practice
- labeling photos with a soft pencil on the back is part of preservation guidelines