Keeping research Safe

Keeping your research safe

This page is developed from an original posting from VictorianLizzie and we are grateful to her for her kind permission to reproduce her posting. 

It is obvious that all of us have treasured artifacts in our homes which we would hate to be lost during such a natural or other type of disaster which would place them at risk. We also have many items, documents and pictures which we would never be able to replace and whilst they may have little material value they often have immense sentimental value. 

The most important items seem to be photos of family and especially photos of those no longer with us. Those of us interested in Genealogy, often have a lot more pictures, old Bibles, written documents etc. than others.

So it is best to have a plan in place to preserve those items as best we can obviously without putting lives at risk.

The following are some actions which we can take to ensure that the items are preserved.

• Scan actual photographs and together with your digitised photographs upload copies them to your computer.
• Scan all documents and keep those in your computer also. If the worst happens and there is no time to linger over documents and to look through photograph albums to decide which ones to keep - then you can most usually always just grab your tower/Motherboard of your computer and leave the area.
• Even if your Motherboard is damaged in a fire, did you know that you can send it to some places, regardless of the amount of damage, and they can, for a fee of course, still retrieve almost everything you had stored on it?
• Make physical copies of everything and keep those copies in files/folders/boxes etc. in the home of someone else far away from your own location. Bank vaults are often good places to store particularly important papers.
• Try to keep ALL your Genealogy info, files and pics, in files which are easy to take - rather than a filing cabinet for example. Plastic bins are particularly handy.
• It's also a good idea to take photos of everything you own. Every room, closeups of important treasures etc. Don't forget to open cupboards and photograph jewelry also.  Make copies of all those and store in your computer. Make extra copies and send to someone to keep for you in their home. Store them in a bank box if necessary.
• Try to store everything important in three or four different  places. In your home - within easy reach if you have to make a hurried escape, in your computer, in the home of a distant relative or friend and of course at the bank if you have a bank vault/box.
• Don't forget to have copies of your important financial, insurance and work related documents somewhere safe. Many "Money Management" Software Programmes have the facility to keep as asset register and to upload pictures of your assets and valuable.
• In a disaster you will be sure that one or other of your collection will be safe for the future. But if all else becomes difficult, just grabbing the motherboard of your pc will at least give you almost everything you will need for the future if necessary.
• For those of you with a CD burner, you can of course put everything on Cd's. and store them with a friend or keep them handy in case of an emergency preferably in a home safe which would be portable in the event of a disaster.

Being prepared makes sense and don't put it off until tomorrow!

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