I am trying to use our stay-home time to finish up some heirloom organizing. I have tagged and labeled most of the objects I have inherited. (Next, I will figure out how to have some of it framed to display).
Now I am down to organizing all the paper stuff I inherited or saved. We have documents from our (DH and I) own two lives before we were married as well as stuff from my family, his family and our immediate family. There are war time letters, birthday cards, bank books, ration cards, newspaper clippings, invitations, announcements, certificates, artwork, tickets, grade cards, diplomas, military records , etc. You get the idea.
How have you organized those things? Did you make sets to pass on to each kid?
Probably not what you want to hear but we scanned and tossed almost everything. Other than family pictures and some letters, there was zero I wanted from my parents’ house, and our D has even less than zero desire.
H’s aunt has a house full of every scrap of paper she ever received. We are responsible for clearing out her house as she has no kids. It’s all going into the trash.
I do have a memory box of things important to me and a scrap book of D’s awards and examples of school work but the rest is digital.
I have a cedar chest in my bedroom that belonged to my Grandmother and put everything to save in it. A few years ago I needed more space so I went through it and tossed a bunch of stuff. That’s it.
I’m thinking of go through again and tossing more. My kids have little interest in most of it anyway.
I have a secretary in my living room with three drawers. Pretty much all our pictures we took when we used a real camera are in there. But not in any organized way. Just thrown in. The baby picture albums are in the bookshelves in my living room - along with our wedding albums.
When S went off to college (2011j I cleaned out his whole room and went through all the boxes filled with his childhood memories. Tossed almost everything. What I kept fills three medium sized Tupperware bins.
When we are no longer on this planet I suspect he’ll go through all these types of things and maybe keep a few - but most will likely get thrown out.
@momofsenior1,
My Aunt was like that, except she had four houses filled with stuff (she couldn’t part with those either.) There wasn’t a chair to sit on or a table to put anything on that wasn’t covered with paper. When she died her only child had to clean out everything so she could sell them. It was a nightmare for her and took about two years to get it all done.
@FallGirl 
I have my grandmother’s cedar chest, a wedding gift from my grandfather, filled with family keepsakes in my bedroom, too.
I am not talking about photos here. As far as the paper stuff, there isn’t THAT much–the equivalent of around three shoe boxes full at most. I will scan what I keep after it’s all organized so that each kid can get a set, but I won’t be tossing any of what is left. My kids would kill me. They think it is all “super awesome”. With the exception of a handful of pieces of artwork, or homemade cards, this isn’t their school/childhood memorabilia…they have culled and packed that themselves. This is mostly stuff with significant family historical value, including some documents from the late 1800s. The only cards I’ve kept are ones with interesting letters --nothing that was just merely signed.
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I just did this! It took 23 days. We have basement shelves. Learning from this website years ago, I have tupperwear bins, 2 for each D that has awards, report cards, cute things, etc. 2 for us, one for grandchildren.
Then for boxes that are sturdy bank boxes I have 10 shelves in the basement.
Each has a box and a label. Texas photos, Our photos, etc. I left the old photos in the photo albums and placed them next to the boxes.
The kids loved when I sent them texts of photos from WW1, WW2, v-mail, wedding certificates from 1800’s etc. Not want to scan. I wanted to keep the antiques. Amazing how papers 150 years old are in good shape. Very valuable things go in a safe.
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