I am at the beginning of what I foresee to be a huge project - which is organizing, digitizing, and sharing all the old family photos and documents I currently have in my possession.

I don't consider myself the owner of these items. I see myself as the "keeper of the collection" for this generation. I got them from my dad, and he got them from his aunt. The next generation will have a keeper also at some point, and I'm doing my best to "groom" my daughter for this. I also want to preserve the original "concept", if that is the right word, for many things. In other words, I don't think it is fair to inflict my tastes and ideas onto generations to come, since I am only the current keeper.

Since I've never been a paper scrapper, I've not had much dilemma as far as paper scrapping in addition to the digital LO's. But I have wanted to digitize things so they can be easily shared with my brothers and other family members. But I also want to preserve the original "concept", if that is the right word, for many things. I have some paper items that should just be printed out all by themselves, or at least preserved digitally as a high-res image that someone else can print as they see fit.

I can make myself a digital LO in addition to the "duplication". I have a couple of these LO's in my gallery. I can also either provide the LO on a CD to family members or print them a copy also. Another couple of CD's in addition to the backups I do for off-site safekeeping isn't difficult to do.

I have TONS of old letters and at this point I have put them into sleeves and into a 3-ring notebook. They can't ever be replaced and I think back into a box is a shame, although some items are too large for this. I got them as originals, and I want to keep them as close to original as I can - thus I would be totally against paper scrapping if I were a paper-scrapper. If I were really organized - which I am trying to be with this project, I would cross-reference each digital LO with the original items.

As I work on this project, I am also working on the genealogy of the family - which of course is another entirely huge project. When I am all done with everything, I will have a book to print - probably several hundred pages.

Now that I've rambled on a bit too much, I have a question for those of you doing "heritage" scrapping: Do you find this type of scrapping to be different from the everyday life scrapping? What are your goals with a LO?

Do we need a user group of heritage scrappers - or maybe if there was enough response, Amy/Kristie might give us our own little forum section?

Thanks for listening. (oh and I didn't proof this - so watch out for typos)

__________________
Nancy


"The Eyes Have It"