Organize Your Family History

Stay focused and happy while exploring your roots

The challenges of downsizing inherited items

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As I mentioned, I moved last summer, downsizing from a 3200-square-foot house to a 1700-square-foot apartment. It’s a spacious apartment but it certainly lacks the storage that our house had. (In addition to 3200 square feet the house had a full unfinished basement.) I let go of a lot in the moving process, but I did move of the family photos I’ve accumulated and never really done anything with. These are photos passed down to me, as well as photos from my lifetime (and my husband’s).

I felt the pain of my limited storage space again this week when I moved some furniture around in my office and took the photo boxes off the bookshelves they were on so I could move the shelves. Before returning them to the shelves, I glanced through the boxes to see if I could consolidate any of them to save space. Nope. There’s a treasure trove in there but it’s going to take some time to go through. I have nine photo boxes of varying sizes to deal with. I need to formulate a plan to do that!

This morning, in the midst of thinking about my photos, I received genealogist Amy Johnson Crow’s email newsletter and was delighted to see that it was all about downsizing and family history. It features a link to the interview she and I did in 2019 for her podcast, Generations Cafe.

The interview touches on some strategies for downsizing your own belongings as well as helping family members downsize, which can be an even larger challenge.

Amy’s email prompted me to see if I had written here before about this interview, and I have. This post from 2022 reminded me how overwhelmed I was by the items I inherited when my father died and when my aunt (his sister) moved to a nursing home, all within the space of a few months in 2022. The fact that I was able to whittle the stuff down before my husband and I moved in June 2024  and now just have nine photos boxes actually makes me feel good.

At the end of the interview, I made a statement that really hit home for me today. I said, “Right now I’m thinking of these photos I need to go through as a chore. But it’s really not a chore, it’s a privilege.” That’s true isn’t it?

It’s more pleasant to go through these treasured photos and ephemera when you’re not under a lot of time pressure. If you have inherited items calling to you for attention, please consider working on them sooner rather than later when you have a better chance of enjoying the process.

Here’s a link to the podcast episode if you’re interested in listening to the interview.

Some great downsizing advice

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Photo of Gena Philibert-Ortega

Gena Philibert-Ortega

Downsizing is something that most of us deal with at one time or another. And when you’re a genealogist, it’s especially challenging. (I blogged about it earlier this month.)

I was asked by Gena Philibert-Ortega to contribute some insights to her terrific two-part article on downsizing for Legacy Family Tree’s blog. She gathered some terrific advice from a variety of people and it’s definitely worth a read.

Here are the links:

Downsizing (Part 1) – Getting the Process Rolling (that’s the one I’m quoted in)

Downsizing (Part 2) – Let the Voices of Experience Guide You

Thank you, Gena, for including me!

Downsizing when you’re the family historian

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I was so delighted to see in my email this week that my friend, Amy Johnson Crow, is promoting the podcast episode she and I recorded back in the fall of 2019, Downsizing and Family History.

When I spoke to her in 2019 I didn’t have any personal experience with dealing with inherited family history items. I always viewed my parents as non-collectors and figured when the time came I wouldn’t be faced with too many challenges. But I’ve gained some experience now and there were plenty of challenges. In March, my father’s older sister moved into skilled nursing and I sold her home for her. (I’m her Power of Attorney.) I requested that any family-history related items be taken to my father’s condo for me to go through later. Then in May, I moved my father into assisted living and faced down going through his stuff and my aunt’s stuff in the same week so I could get his condo on the market. He passed away August 20, only three months after moving, and I needed to clear out his assisted-living apartment in a matter of a few days.

I tried to practice what I preach and get in touch with what’s important to me about these documents and photos. I tried to evaluate their potential value for future historians. I offered a bunch of stuff to my brothers (one took stuff, the other didn’t). And I shipped some boxes to myself.

I have sorted through the seven boxes I shipped in May but am still processing those documents and photos. I am anticipating a shipment today of stuff from my father’s apartment. I’ll spend some time in the coming week going through those items and figuring how/where to store them. I know that Stacy Julian’s method, How to BEGIN with the BOX, will be very helpful again.

As the family historian for my family, I feel a lot of responsibility for these items. But I’m going to use my expertise as a professional organizer to try to save those items that are the most valuable from a genealogy standpoint. My perspective, as I shared on Amy’s podcast, is that the more I keep of any one category of item, the less special any of it is. But I also know that now isn’t the best time to make decisions with lasting repercussions. So I will probably save more than I might otherwise for later consideration.

If you’ve been through this, I’d be very interested in hearing about your approach!