How to Preserve and Protect Your Old Letters
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How to preserve your old letters
If you’re lucky enough to have old letters from your family passed down to you, you might be wondering how to preserve them. You may have love letters, letters written by a soldier back home, or just day to day correspondence.
Fortunately, preserving old letters is pretty straightforward and you don’t have to break the bank to keep them safe.
Read the basic steps on how to preserve and organize old letters below!
Preserving your old letters
Prep your workspace. Thoroughly wash and dry your hands. Have a clean, large space to work in. You don’t need to wear gloves as they make it hard to handle papers. Keep all food, liquids, pens, and smoke away from your workspace.
Unfold and remove any bindings. Remove any staples, paper clips, or any other metal attaching papers together. If you can’t remove the binding without tearing the paper, leave it. This staple remover will help to safely remove them. Here’s a very short video on how to use this tool without damaging the paper.
Scan or take photos of every page, including the envelope. This will reduce how often you need to handle the letters in the future. Back up the files in several places.
Place in your archival storage. You have a few options here, depending on your preferences, how many letters you have, and your budget.
Lay flat and store in a flat document box, in archival folders with acid-free tissue between each page
Lay flat and store in upright document box, in archival folders with acid-free tissue between each page
Store each page separately in acid-free sheet protectors and place in a binder or archival document box
Whatever method you choose, keep the envelopes with the letters
Store properly. Keep the boxes or binders in a cool, low humidity (15%-65%) place to prevent brittleness, insects, and mold.
Other tips
Do not laminate the original papers under any circumstances. It’ll destroy your precious family documents.
Print off copies of your scans and keep them in binders. You can mark these up with notes if you want.
Transcribe the letters using the scans
Organizing your old letters
The next step is to choose your organization system for your physical and digital files.
Original letters. The most common methods are by author or recipient and then chronologically. You can also keep them in the way the recipient stored them, like if they bundled them together in a different way. This may have had meaning to the recipient.
After you’ve scanned them, place in your selected archival storage as described in the last section (document boxes or binders, acid-free tissue or sheet protectors) in your chosen organization system. Depending on how many letters you have and how you choose to store them, you may be able to group different authors/recipients in one box or binder to save space and money.
Organize the scans. Pick a file naming standard with the info you think is important. Some ideas are:
AuthorLastFirst_RecipientLastFirst_YYYYDDMM_Subjectofletter
YYYYDDMM_AuthorLastnameFirstname_RecipientLastname_Firstname
YYYY-DD-MM-AuthorFirstname-AuthorLastname-RecipientFirstname-RecipientLastname
You can add metadata tags to the file properties. These are searchable. You can add subjects, names of people mentioned, etc. There are many tutorials online on how to tag files based on your software and operating system.
Make an index. If you want to get fancy and also help your future research, you can make an index of your letters. You can include things like the people mentioned, places, subjects, recipients (if you organize by author) and vice versa, and any other points that would be helpful for you to reference later on. In the index, you’d record which box or binder and file folder that letter could be found in.
Related posts:
Why You Should Use Libraries & Archives In Your Genealogy Work
Some suggested preservation supplies
The method and supplies you choose will depend on how many letters you have and your budget. No matter how you choose to store your letters, the key is to keep the letters in acid-free and lignin-free storage.
Here are some options for supplies to get you started:
- Flat boxes in different sizes like this or this.
- A drop-front box for easier access to folders in different sizes like this one or this.
- Letter-size upright document boxes like this, this, this, or this one.
- Legal-size upright document boxes like this one.
- Archival file folders like these, these, or these.
- Legal-size folders like these ones.
- Record storage boxes if you have a lot of documents like this one or a half-sized option.
- Sheet protectors this these. Or buy them in bulk here or here.
- Acid-free tissue like this or this.
Choose boxes that are big enough so the folders can lay or stand upright without bending. Don’t put too much in the box and use a spacer board if the box is too empty.
Related posts:
Other ideas on how to use your scanned letters
And now the fun stuff (besides reading them)! You’ve scanned and organized everything. Now what else can you do with the scans?
Share them with family
Simply make copies and put them in a binder
Make a photobook
Make a spiral-bound book at Staples or other office supply store
Custom order a kitchen towel or cutting board with one of the letters from Etsy
If you’re crafty, decoupage a table
Do you have other suggestions for how to share the letters with family? Let me know in the comments!