Keep or throw away: the challenge of genealogical documents and photos

This may not be obvious, but it is a generated image and it does bear a significant relationship to the recent status of the boxes in my basement. The past few weeks, various members of my family have come and "assisted" us in working through the piles of boxes in the basement and making the hard decisions about preservation or simply throwing them away. One decision involved incorporating our greater family at a recent reunion, providing boxes of documents, and allowing them to make choices about what they wanted to keep. The real issue is what to keep. 

Over the years, I have evolved a strategy for record retention. Obviously, the number of records affects the application of the strategy. If you have one box of records and a few photos, this decision to keep or throw away is probably already made. What you have is what you want to keep. On the other hand, if you are like me, the recipient of various ancestral collections of documents and records and photos, then the decision becomes much more complex. 

Before getting started with making decisions about record retention, it is a good idea to look on FamilySearch.org to see whether any of the memories available are records that you are holding in your own collection and thereby duplicating. Photos fall into a different category, and I will discuss them after writing about documents. 

The different retention levels I have evolved are as follows: 

1. Records with obvious historic value. This includes handwritten old journals, diaries, and letters between members of your family in the distant past. The distant past for some may vary from others. In my case, it is great-grandparents and beyond. The questions to ask at this first level include whether or not the documents are unique or one of a kind and would have not been preserved by any other method or repository. Assuming that this type of document is not readily available online, then keeping these copies and sharing them is very important. 
2. The second level is a little less inclusive. It contains official documents: birth, death, marriage, and official certificates from employment or military service. The dividing line here is the issue of who is responsible for being the archive for certain types of records. If the records of any type are easily obtained by searching on the Internet, then perhaps it is not up to an individual to preserve those types of records. 
3. The third level is more readily identifiable. This includes greeting cards, birthday cards, postcards, and other items that have no actual content other than a signature. It also includes newspaper articles, whole newspapers, and a variety of documents from your ancestors' involvement in the community, such as:

   • dances
   • parties
   • vacation trips with their friends
   • involvement in civic service
   • and so forth

   
   
4. The fourth level is really, really easy to identify. This is everything else: news advertisements, receipts for payments, ledger books without any identification other than numbers and so forth. 

You may want to divide up your levels of retention differently than I have done here because of your own unique family situation. The secondary issue is also important, and that is the question of whether or not an archive would be interested in keeping and maintaining the records. 

I mentioned that photographs fall into a different category. Each photograph is essentially a one-of-a-kind document. However, you may fall into the trap that I have extensively suffered, and that is that my ancestors were either professional photographers or felt a duty to take a picture of everything they saw. I have literally hundreds of photos of each of my family members. The ultimate question is: How many photographs do you want to preserve of your parents or siblings? 

One solution for part of the problem of making the decisions is to digitize everything. Once it's digitized, it is no longer taking up space in your basement, and you may have a greater incentive to dispose of the paper documents. At this stage, it is important to carefully distinguish between unique historical documents, such as an original journal and its digital copy. In this case, the original can have an historical value not shared by other types of documents. The issue of how many photos to save of your parents and grandparents and siblings may be resolved by digitizing all the records, all the photographs, and then disseminating the digital images out to family members. 

 Finally, you may want to investigate whether or not some of your most important documents, such as journals and diaries, may have enough historical interest that a university special collections library or other repository may have an interest in preserving the document itself and making it available to your family members. This is particularly true of FamilySearch.org. Original diaries and journals sometimes have enough interest to be preserved directly by FamilySearch.

 In conclusion, I just want to make sure that you understand that we spent countless hours digitizing and organizing the records and only finally came to a conclusion to spend an extraordinary amount of time during a few weeks to attempt to control the rest of the content on paper sitting in the basement 

Outstanding Repair of Old Damaged Photographs by Google Gemini

 

The basic issue with the AI repair of old damaged photos in the concept that the AI recreates the image in the form of a copy of the original, while adding the details that are impacted by the damage. The old Photoshop technique was to work pixel by pixel and repair the photo using the information in the adjacent pixels. With a photo like the one above, that process, just for the crack and the missing segments of the outline of the image, would have taken hours. Giving Gemini a prompt like this and brief instructions about what is required will dramatically produce the resultant photograph in about 15 seconds. 

Act as a master photo conservator and expert digital restoration artist specializing in Adobe Photoshop. Your goal is to evaluate the damage to a historical photograph and create a precise, surgical repair plan that prioritizes preservation over total recreation. 

Follow this strict multi-step process:

1. Baseline Assessment: Describe the original, undamaged elements of the photo (e.g., intact subject features, paper grain, original contrast). This defines what must NOT be altered.

2. Damage Inventory: Map out the specific types of damage found in the image, classifying them into:

   - Structural (tears, cracks, missing sections, creases)

   - Surface/Chemical (stains, fading, silver mirroring, mold spots)

3. Surgical Repair Plan: For each identified area of damage, specify the exact, minimal tool or technique required (e.g., Clone Stamp for localized texture replication, Content-Aware Fill for clean edge tears, Frequency Separation to remove stains without destroying skin or paper texture). 

4. Preservation Safeguards: Explain how you will monitor and isolate changes (e.g., using dedicated non-destructive layers, precise masking, and blending modes) to ensure that the original, unblemished portions of the photograph remain completely untouched.

Adhere strictly to the rule of minimal intervention: make only the changes necessary to stabilize and repair the damage, preserving 100% of the authentic historical texture and detail where no damage exists. Do not apply global smoothing or destructive filters.

 

Here is another example of a repair from Google Gemini:

 Granted, the photo itself is not a good photo but the repair improves the image. I think there is an argument for being careful about using the digitized images without disclosure, but in this case, the repaired image is clearly marked with the Google Gemini logo in the lower right-hand corner. 

It is also absolutely important to keep the original photo, even though it is damaged assuming that it is a one-of-a-kind photograph.

Brick Walls Come in all Sizes -- How big is yours?

 I have always been in disagreement with the common family history and genealogy analogy to brick walls. Often, the term is applied to research situations that have appeared to reach a dead end. However, in real life, a brick wall is easily scaled or, even from a practical standpoint, can be knocked down quite easily using the proper equipment. But rather to continue to denigrate the use of the term "brick walls" in the genealogical context. I think it would be helpful to examine the real-life end-of-line situations that are common to every single effort to extend a pedigree. 

First of all, a short mention of the time-wasting efforts to extend a pedigree back to Adam or some royal ancestor. See my posts for "Are you related to royalty?" and "Back to Back to Adam" You might also want to review my post called "The end of an ancestral line: A Significant Genealogical Challenge"

The most common example of a brick wall involves a fixation with finding only birth, marriage, and death (BMD) records and relying almost exclusively on census records. This issue is particularly evident from the content of the sources cited on the FamilySearch.org Family Tree. The goal of extending a pedigree back to the early 1800s can usually be accomplished using records that fall into these two categories. It is also apparent from examining hundreds, if not thousands, of entries in the FamilySearch.org Family Tree that most of the research done by users ends when a person is identified using these records. Unfortunately, reliance on BMD and census records ends in the early 1800s, and any further research relies on less easily obtained record sets. 

The next category of brick walls is also extremely common. This category refers to an unrealistic fixation on the identity of a particular ancestor. The genealogist or family historian focuses an extraordinarily large amount of attention to one person rather than extending their research to a community of people. This is usually called FAN or Cluster Research. In the vast majority of cases, this ancestor is an immigrant from one area of the world to another. See "Immigration: The Greatest Genealogical Challenge (three parts)" Over the years, I have probably written hundreds of articles about the difficulty of determining the origin of an immigrant. See "How does an indentured servant, redemptioner, or enslaved ancestor affect your research?"

The next brick wall category is also extremely common on the FamilySearch.org website. I use the FamilySearch website as an example because it is a huge mixture of readily accessed individual family trees, whereas trying to use a website such as Ancestry.com for the same purpose would be impossible. This common brick wall is difficult to visualize because the line seems to extend forever past the actual end. My challenge to anyone willing to spend the time has been vindicated over and over again. I simply tell people that if I look at their part of the FamilySearch Family Tree, I can easily determine or find a person whose ancestry goes back generations, including royalty, when there are not adequate sources provided to establish the actual relationship. This issue is not just limited to people with extensive pedigrees such as those with Utah pioneer ancestry. It is also sad that these genealogical researchers may spend an extraordinary amount of time doing descendancy research from ancestors they are not really related to. 

Even though the analogy breaks down at this point, the next brick wall involves reality. Historical records documenting individuals begin to disappear in the 1600s and may completely disappear by the mid-1500s. In short, the ability to extend a line past 1600 is tremendously more difficult than any more recent time period. When attempts are made to do this, it is common for the lines to rely solely upon same name, same person conclusions. This is often the most common leap into the fantasy of royal or noble ancestry. I certainly do not want to denigrate the efforts of extremely cautious and talented researchers to extend their family lines into actual connections with royalty or nobility, but I find so few of these are accurate on the FamilySearch Family Tree as to make them extraordinary. 

The last, but probably not really the last, category of brick walls is just due to inertia, a lack of interest and effort to extend a pedigree line. 

Take heed: involving yourself in genealogical research is an educational challenge. No matter how much you already know, almost every newly discovered ancestor becomes his or her own need to broaden your educational background. Get busy and keep learning. 

AI Comes to The Family History Guide

 The Family Histoy Guide is diving into the world of AI assisted learning. Each of the categories on the startup page lead to an AI experience that will help you quicking navigate the website and find the help you need. Of course the old method of navigating all the family history information on the website is still available through the menu bar. The website continues to provide in depth learning for all aspects of family history and genealogy. Here is a short summary of the content of the website with some assistance from Google Gemini.  

The Family History Guide is a free, comprehensive learning and research platform designed to simplify genealogical research. Its vast library of resources is structured into several core categories:

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1. Dedicated Learning Paths

The platform offers structured, step-by-step tutorial sequences ("Projects, Goals, and Choices") with integrated articles and instructional videos for the four major genealogy platforms:

• FamilySearch

• Ancestry

• MyHeritage

• Findmypast

2. Research Skills & Knowledgebases

• Research Skills: Guided paths ranging from basic research strategies to advanced principles like the Genealogical Proof Standard.

• Country Research: Over 60 dedicated country pages providing historical context, specialized research strategies, and localized records.

• Ethnic Research: Dedicated sections focused on African American, Asian, Basque, Hispanic, Jewish, and Native American genealogy.

• QUIKLinks: Direct, "just-in-time" links that launch you directly into specific record search screens across various databases.

• The Vault & Knowledgebases: A massive secondary repository organizing hundreds of deep-dive articles and videos by topic.

3. Training & Tracking Tools

• Trainers Resources: Lesson plans, presentation slide decks, 2-minute demos, and materials designed for instructors, consultants, or family history centers.

• Online Tracker: A interactive tracking tool (available online or as downloadable documents) that lets users monitor, save, and measure their learning progress.

• Quizzes & Exercises: Practical activities to test your understanding of various research methods.

4. Specialized & Community Resources

• Activities: Hundreds of interactive, family-friendly genealogy activities separated by audience (Families, Individuals, Youth, and Children/Kids Corner).

• Computer Basics: Fundamental tutorials covering Mac and Windows operating systems, desktop applications, and basic web navigation for beginners.

• Faith-Based Material: Special tracking sections and custom guidance mapped specifically to Latter-day Saint (LDS) family history processes, alongside resources for other faith traditions.