Top tips from the experts to keep your precious family photos safe for future generations!

Before and After - www.instarestoration.com

This is Peter Rosenkranz from InstaRestoration.com. We are a professional online photo restoration service with instant quotes. Our company repairs all kinds of different damages such as watermarks, scratches, cracks or even torn pieces. Simply upload your old family photo and we’ll do the rest. 

In this tutorial, I will explain to you how to properly archive your images to prevent such damage in the first place.

Around 80% of all the restoration work we are performing is related to family photos. What’s interesting about it is that around about 60% of these images have only suffered severe damage because of improper storage or display. This shows how important it is to archive your old family photos properly.

One of the first things you have to understand is that the process of decay is extremely slow. Improperly storing them won’t affect them today or tomorrow but eventually will have an impact. Just take a look at photographs from the early 20th century. It is almost impossible to find prints without any damage. Most of them have minor or even major damage. Compared to the length of your family’s history a 100 years is a blink of an eye. For saving these images for future generations to come it is crucial to apply some simple guidelines.

1. Temperature and Humidity

This one is the most important one. Your photographs have to be stored in a dry and cool place. Don’t store them like most people do, either on the attic or in the basement.
In the attic, high temperatures during summer cause your photograph to fade whereas the high humidity in the basement can lead to fungus and mould. These alterations are irreversible and can only be restored by a professional.

2. Use proper archiving material 

When buying archive boxes and sleeves always check whether they are acid and bleach free. Even paper boxes can include these harmful chemicals. Over time these substances slowly alter your photographs through chemical reactions. You might not see it straight away but think about the days and years your photographs stay in those boxes.

3. Photos only!

This sounds reasonable but you won’t believe how many times I have seen those kinds of damage. Photos have to be stored with photos only. Don’t put Grandma’s necklace or Grandpa’s ring into the same box as their photographs. Every time someone is moving that box these objects scratch the sensitive surface of your photographs. For the best protection put each photograph in an acid-free archive sleeve.

4. Ultraviolet light

Ultraviolet light is the number one reason for faded photographs. Always try to keep your original photographs out of direct sunlight. Think about how dangerous it can be to human skin, the same goes for photographs. If you like to display your old family photos in the living room or office use UV block glass or even better create a copy of that photo and store the original somewhere else.

5. Adhesives 

We have done it all at some point… I’m talking about those handy and easy to use sticky strips and other adhesives. As useful they might be as dangerous are the chemicals inside of them. Only use those sticky strips on reproductions of your photos, not the original ones.

6. Air Pollutants

Yeah, I know this one sounds silly but still it happens quite often. Don’t put your photo box in the same room as daddy stores his paint thinner or mommy her aggressive cleaning agent. What makes you dizzy makes your photographs dizzy as well.

7. Framing

This one comes in handy when you want to frame your photographs. First of all, think about whether you want to display an original print or not. If it’s an original photograph make sure to use UV blocking glass. Also, think about the possibility of the image becoming stuck to the frame’s glass. This sometimes happens because of fluctuating humidity during the seasons. And seriously this happening is pretty much the worst case scenario.
To prevent that either use frames with a distance between glass and print or put a special translucent plastic sheet between glass and image.

8. Labelling

Some of you like to label their old photographs. This actually makes sense for future generations to understand who that person is. But never use a ballpoint-pen, marker or one of these printable sticker labels. Again these all include chemicals that will slowly alter your photograph. The best and most gentle way to label your images is by using a very soft pencil.

9. Create digital copies

Last but not least create digital copies of your images, especially the ones which have already suffered damage. If worst comes to worst you still have a back up on your hard disk.

Before and After - www.instarestoration.com

Apply these simple steps and you're good to go. If any of your images are already damaged and you'd love to get them repaired or colourized check out our website.

www.instarestoration.com

Guest blog by Peter Rosenkranz

Free Scottish Genealogy Tutorials

We are creating free family history tutorials to help you trace your Scottish family tree.

Our first tutorial will show how to find your ancestors on historical maps, using our website.



Our second tutorial demonstrates how to use 'wildcards' to find those ancestors who never seem to spell their name the same way twice!



Subscribe to our YouTube channel so that you don't miss the next tutorial.

Researching Historic Mental Health Records in Scotland

Elmhill House, Royal Cornhill Hospital Aberdeen

Our health is perhaps one of the most precious things we have. Sadly, there are still too many people who suffer without treatment, without understanding and without hope. How did our ancestors, and their families, cope with life-changing health problems?

If an ancestor had a farming accident, for example, you may find a newspaper report. In such cases you may very quickly be able to gain some understanding of what the individual and their loved ones may have experienced.

Mental health, though, is very different. Sometimes, all we know comes from that final column in the census: ‘Lunatic’! Alternatively, we may have searched the census for a missing family member, only for them to turn up in a ‘Lunatic Asylum’. It can be a shocking discovery, and cause us to ask many questions.

This doesn’t have to be the end of the story, though, as you can find out a lot more about mental health problems and their treatment in the past. Some of the stories you may have heard may even be myths. Researching the original records may actually give you answers, and therefore peace.

For example, I had always had the idea that in the Victorian era thousands of people were locked up, and then they threw away the key! From our research here in Scotland we have found this was not always the case. Yes, there were some long term patients, but there also seems to have been many thousands who were in an institution for a short time only, and do not seem to have been re-admitted.

How can you dig deeper? One place to start is at the National Records of Scotland (NRS). There is a particularly useful set of records held there concerning those admitted to mental health institutions throughout Scotland from 1858 onwards.

The first of these is a national register detailing the patient’s name, the institution they were committed to, the date of their admission and the date of their release or transfer. This register even records those already in institutions in Scotland on 1 January 1858. The NRS references this register as MC7. They have kindly granted permission for me to share some example images with you taken from the ‘National Register’: click on the image to enlarge it and you should be able to read the entries on the page clearly. This page is taken from the volume MC7/1.

Secondly, there are individual patient admission forms, giving much more detail on the individual patient and their situation. In almost all cases you should be able to find a patient admission form corresponding to each entry in the ‘National Register’ just described. These admission forms are bound into volumes, one volume for each month from January 1858 onwards. The NRS references this series of volumes as MC2. The best way to understand these records is probably to read an example case for yourself, again click on the image to see a larger version. This example case is taken from volume MC2/47.

This set of records is excellent because it should contain everyone in a mental health institution in Scotland from 1858 onwards. It is possible, though, to dig even deeper and look at locally held records. Highland Archives in Inverness, for example, hold records relating to their area and you can consult these in their search room. Once you know which institution your ancestor was sent to, and the date of admission (information which is always given in the national record sets I referred to above), then you can start with the local archive and ask if they have the records of that particular institution, or know where they are held.

The Scottish Archive Network catalogue can also be used to search a number of archives throughout Scotland. Unfortunately, though, not all archives yet have a comprehensive catalogue available online, and in many cases there is no substitute for contacting the archivist directly.

I would urge you not to hide your ancestor’s mental health issues, as some families may have done in times past. Dig deeper into the records and you can come to a deeper understanding of your family’s history.

Search our existing Scottish records for free at www.scottishindexes.com

New Resource for the Family Historian

As you may have noticed, we love photos! We’re proud of our 1,399 mainly historical photos that we have put on flickr. I’m pleased to say though, that the Internet Archive has put 619,833 photos on flickr and they all appear to be copyright free!

Each photo is well referenced, giving the title of the book, year of publication, authors, subjects and publisher. You can click through to their website to read the entire book. There is also some text from the book on each flickr, helping you understand the context the image was used in.

If you are a professional or an amateur family historian this will be a great resource for illustrating reports and websites to help tell your family story.

Included are photos of places and people (including Scotland) but also machinery from around the world, maps, graphs and much, much more.

The Internet Archive on flickr

Listening to my grandfather

Last week we posted the ancestral research tip: interview your grandparents. This applies as much to any elderly relatives, anyone who can tell the stories of your family. In my case, I interviewed my grandfather. It wasn’t quite as formal as it sounds – we sat in the living room of his new house, with cups of tea and the Commonwealth Games on the television in the background, and we chatted. Granddad has boxes and boxes of old photographs, papers and letters. I spent hours jotting down the names of the people in the photos and learning about their lives, until I was finally dismissed to walk the dog and allow him to get some shut-eye.

Listening to his stories, leafing through old photographs, reading letters – it was as though these people, my family, were characters in a book. I began to feel affection for these relatives I’d never met – my great-grandfather, leaning with charming insouciance against the Blackpool pier, or later, clad in a soldier’s uniform and holding a puppy to his chest. My great-grandmother, remembered by my uncle as an old battle-axe, had cycled around Europe, taken snapshots of Alpine mountains and laughing friends. Her father – my great-great-grandfather – had sailed the North Atlantic – smoked a pipe – doted on his youngest daughter. These fragments build up pictures of the people who came before. It’s fascinating – full of both joy and sorrow, and of course, bringing home the reality of our own mortality. What stories will be told when we are gone?

I pored through old letters – it seems my tendency to store precious moments is inherited, I come from a family of hoarders. Letters of sympathy, on my great-great-grandmother’s death. Letters of congratulations – to my great-grandmother on my grandfather’s birth, then on the birth of his brother Clive (‘I wonder if you weren’t rather disappointed to have another boy? But of course, the clothes will come in useful’). It seems she had wanted a daughter. Letters from friends – postcards from relatives – one note scribbled on the back of an envelope: 

‘Darling, I’ll call you when I finish work – around eleven. Love, Isaac’.

A loving moment from long ago, immortalised. It makes me wish we wrote more letters nowadays. I’ve resolved to try – perhaps one day I’ll be found in a box-full of photographs, old letters, drawings and someone will put these puzzle pieces together.

I’ve found something rather lovely in connecting to the past – knowing who my ancestors were and what they did. I feel that I know my Granddad a little better now as well. I’m keen to find out more – my grandmother came from Scotland, and I have an idea that I know a company who may be able to help…

Looking back to the beginning

This week’s throwback Thursday blog post is a little more personal, taking us back to the very beginning of Maxwell Ancestry. Even while we look forward to the future with Scottish Indexes (www.scottishindexes.co.uk launching tomorrow!) it’s nice to look back at where we came from.

Our founder Graham Maxwell’s family are a long-lived bunch, and it was spending time with elderly relatives which first piqued his interest in genealogy. He remembers hours spent doing jigsaws with his great grandmother when he was just a small child. Sadly, his great granny Maxwell died aged 85 when Graham was only four years old. On the other side of the family, however, his Great Aunt Mary lived until she was 104. Her memories provided a vital and fascinating resource when Graham began his family history research in earnest.

Mary Cameron aged 99, taken on 17 Feb 1989

In 1989, Graham and his mum made their first visit to the General Register Office in Edinburgh. Armed with the knowledge they had gained from family stories, their mission was to trace the family through birth, marriage, death and census records. They hoped this way to compile a coherent picture of their family history.

The records system took some getting used to, and the process of research was a good deal more time consuming than it is today. However, their efforts were rewarded - together they successfully traced their family tree before going on to write a family history book as a gift for Graham’s Nana and Pappa. Long before ‘Who Do You Think You Are?’ or Ancestry.com, Graham and his mum created an easy-to-read family history chronicle filled with family photos and historic postcards of places and people. Fascinated by the past, Graham has always endeavoured to understand the lives of people’s ancestors beyond mere names and dates. In this first family album he added a piece of linen woven in the mill where his ancestors once lived.                                             

                                                                 

Researching his own family history whetted Graham’s appetite for genealogy. When friends asked him to research their family trees he didn’t hesitate. His time delving into the records came with the growing realisation that he could translate his passion into a career, and he began to take on clients in 1996.

Over time the business grew, most clients hearing of the business through word of mouth. Graham continued to develop his skills and gained further experience as a genealogist, becoming a regular fixture in both the General Register Office (now the ScotlandsPeople centre) and the National Archives.

A lot has changed since these early beginnings – both for the business itself and within the field of genealogy. Maxwell Ancestry was amongst the earliest of ancestral research businesses to harness the power of the internet, allowing people from Manitoba to Melbourne to seek records. His wife Emma joined the business in 2001 and together the pair have helped people with research projects large and small. While we’re looking forward to launching our new site, our focus will remain on helping our clients – so they can have the ‘Who Do You Think You Are?’ experience Graham’s grandparents had all those years ago.

Graham Maxwell aged 20

In search of the Old Age Pension records - Part Two

Following on from my post “In search of the Old Age Pension records - Part One” I am going to write today about some of the surviving Old Age Pension (OAP) records I have found.

In various local Scottish Archives, such as the Dumfries and Galloway Archives at the Ewart Library in Dumfries, there are Old Age Pension Committee Registers. The example (which I have viewed) held in Dumfries is that of Moffat Town Council (reference CB842/1/2/9). It is entitled “Town Council Old Age Pension Committee : Register” and runs from 1908-1948. 

The headings in this register are as follows:

Consecutive number 
Full Name of Claimant, or of Pensioner in regard to whom a question is raised 
Address of Claimant, or Pensioner 
Date on which claim received when made direct to Committee 
Date on which claim referred to Pension Officer 
Date on which claim or question and report received from Pension Officer 
District and Station of Pension Officer 
Number in Pension Officer’s Register 
Date or dates on which claim or question considered by Committee 
Date (of any) on which Claimant or Pensioner (or person appearing on his behalf) heard by Committee 
Decision of Committee and Date (If claim disallowed, give reason) 
Date of notification of decision to (a) Claimant or Pensioner 
Date of notification of decision to (b) Pension Officer 
Date of receipt of notification of appeal 
Name and Address of Appellant (If the Claimant, pr Pension, or the Pension Officer s the Appellant, insert “Claimant,” “Pensioner,” or “Pension Officer,” without address 
Date on which documents relating to claim or question sent to Local Government Board [in correspondence this is often referred to as the LGB] 
Date of notification to Claimant or Pensioner of appeal having been made 
Decision of Local Government Board and date of receipt 
Date of notification of decision of Local Government Board to (a) Claimant, or Pension or other Appellant 
Date of notification of decision of Local Government Board to (b) Pension Officer 
Amount of Pension and date on which Pension becomes payable 
Date on which documents relating to claim or question sent to Pension Officer 
Remarks, e.g. : Note of disqualification or death of Pensioner, or reference to any later entry relating to the same person. 

There are two things I would like to note here. Firstly, relatively few of these registers survive: the only examples held in Dumfries and Galloway Archives seems to those for Moffat and Langholm. Up and down Scotland and in even at The National Archives in Kew there appear to be a few similar examples, but covering only a small fraction of Scotland.

The second thing is that they do not tell us a lot from a genealogical standpoint. There are no dates of birth, for example. They do give addresses, which could occasionally be useful, but it is likely that this information could more readily be gleaned from other sources, such as valuation rolls.

In summary, if you are reading this blog whilst studying the history of the welfare state in the UK these volumes might well be of interest to you. If you are researching your family tree, however, you may find their usefulness is minimal.


UPDATE: Read part three

A snapshot in time

 

Among our family memorabilia, ephemera and documents is the photo album of Margaret (Peggy) Bridger, it contains photos from the 1920's and early 30's and is very well labeled.

Peggy was born in Hong Kong about 1915, and we believe she is the eldest daughter of Richard Leslie Bridger and Mabel Kate Horton. Peggy married a distant relative of ours: William Elliot (Elliot) Grieve.

Peggy's photos are a wonderful record of her childhood and the places she visited through a child's eyes. I have uploaded the album for you to peruse at your leisure, just as a matter of interest to to those who enjoy all things historic. Various people are mentioned, usually just first names or surnames, but I hope in time to identify who most of the people are.

View the album on flickr

If you have some family albums why not upload them to a site like flickr. It's a good opportunity to have a look through them and share them with family. Post a comment on this blog if you have an album to share.

Scottish local photos and postcards now on Flickr

High Stret, Innerleithen from the west, a photo by Maxwell Ancestry on Flickr.

We have begun uploading our collection of photographs and old postcards to Flickr. Most of these will be free to use as long as you attribute them to us.

We're doing this because we know how important it is to see where your ancestors lived and how they lived, I believe you need to see more than a list of names and dates. When we create our luxury books we source photographs and postcards to help you visualise the lives of your ancestors.

Our collection is Scottish and mainly the Borders and Dumfriesshire however we may stray out of our area from time to time. We are trying to geotag photos and by giving descriptive titles and appropriate tags we hope the whole world will be able to find them! We still need your help though; if you have a personal story about a place in one of our photos can you add it in a comment. We hope it will be a simple way to share a lot of history

Take a look at our collection: http://www.flickr.com/photos/maxwellancestry/collections/72157629222108089/