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Genealogy Resolutions and Photos

January 5, 2024

It’s the first of the year, and many people are making New Year’s Resolutions. Genealogists are no exception; almost all of us have goals we’d like to accomplish. Identifying some of those goals and putting them in the form of a resolution may help spur us into taking concrete steps toward achieving them.

 

Personally, I’ve decided that this is the year that I finally get serious about organizing and perhaps scanning some of those old photos that have been languishing in boxes for years. Rather than making a lot of resolutions that will overwhelm me, this is the only resolution I’m making this year. Hopefully, this will goad me into action. I’m tired of feeling guilty every time I look at the unsorted boxes. If you’re in the same situation, you may want to make a similar resolution.

 

Even if you’re not ready for a deep dive into your old photos, a mini resolution might be to make sure that your photos are stored in a safe location. A damp basement or hot attic are not the ideal storage spots for pictures. A closet shelf or other out-of-the-sun spot that doesn’t experience sharp temperature changes would be better.

 

While you’re moving your storage boxes to new storage spots, make sure that the boxes and files are made of archival-safe materials. Old shoeboxes or grocery cartons are not acid-free and could contribute to the deterioration of photos. Even many plastics are not safe and may react with the inks of your pictures.

 

Also, make sure that none of your photos are in those stick-on albums with plastic covers for each page. Those materials can quickly destroy photos. If you are removing photos from albums, take a snapshot of each page before you remove the pictures. The original arrangement of photos can provide clues as to the identities of the subjects.

 

If any other documents are stored with your photos, it’s important to give them separate folders or sleeves of their own. The paper in these documents can adversely affect photographs. Be especially careful to put newspaper clippings into separate files. Newsprint decays rapidly and can adversely affect anything stored next to it.

 

If you’re wondering where to begin, a good beginning tutorial on preserving photographs is available at the American Library Association website at https:///www.ala.org/alcts/preservationweek/howto/photos .

Acid-free, archival quality photo sleeves and boxes are readily available online.

 

Once your photos are in safe storage conditions, scanning them is the next step. You can do this yourself or have a professional do it for you. Cost and time will be the deciding factors. Your time or your wallet may not allow you to take this next step immediately. Now that they are stored in conditions that will preserve them long term, scanning is not as immediately urgent.

 

If you don’t get around to finish scanning everything, remember that a partial resolution accomplished is better than none.

 

Carol Stetser

Researcher

Mrs. White’s Divinity

December 29, 2023

The holidays are a time for traditions. That’s especially true for folks like me who are the keepers of our family history. I love all the family traditions centered around the holidays, but the special foods of the season are my favorites. That’s why I’m re-running this column – just in case you want to try one of my family traditions.

 

My earliest holiday memories revolve around the cookies and candy that my grandmothers and mother all made. I love divinity, the candy that I called “white cookies” when I was young. The sugar, egg white and light corn syrup concoction was a common holiday treat during my childhood.

 

I think every woman had her own special recipe for divinity, but I’ve always been sure that my family’s was the best. Our family recipe really wasn’t even ours.  It came from a neighbor who lived down the road, Mrs. White.

 

Mrs. White kept chickens and sold their eggs. She raised regular white chickens who lived in a coop, but she also raised bantams who were her pets.  The bantams, and any of the white chickens she thought needed special attention, lived in her spare bedroom.  My mother and grandmother bought eggs from Mrs. White, and I often went with them to pick up the eggs.  When we entered the house, the chickens fluttered around our feet. It was the first and last time I’ve ever seen “house” chickens.

I think most of the people in our rural Utah neighborhood considered Mrs. White odd. She didn’t have children. Because she had long black hair that straggled over her shoulders, many of the neighborhood children were afraid of her. They called her a witch. I don’t think their parents liked her either. My mother and grandmother were probably the only neighbors who even spoke to her. Now that I’m adult, I’m sure that Mrs. White was a very nice woman who was probably lonely and made her chickens into her babies.

Because of all the chickens, Mrs. White had lots of eggs, so she had a cache of recipes using eggs. Because they were friendly, she shared her recipes with my mother and grandmother. This divinity recipe is one of them; my mother always made it around Christmas time. So do I. Mrs. White died when I was still a child, and probably not many people remember her. I think about her every year when I continue the tradition of Mrs. White’s Divinity.

 

If you’d like to add making divinity to your list of holiday traditions, the recipe is below. Happy Holidays and may all your traditions be as sweet as Mrs. White’s Divinity.

 

Mrs. White’s Divinity

 

4 cups sugar

1 cup light corn syrup

¾ cup water

3 egg whites

2 teaspoons vanilla

 

This is an heirloom recipe.  There weren’t any directions; everyone assumed you knew how to make the candy. You only needed help with the amounts.  The following directions are from “Kitchenaid Mixers and Attachments, Recipes and Instructions”.

 

Place the sugar, corn syrup and water in a heavy saucepan.  Over medium heat, cook to hard ball stage (holds a ball shape when dropped in cold water or 236 degrees F at 5000 ft elevation).  Remove from heat and allow to cool to 215 degrees without stirring.

 

Place egg whites in mixer bowl and whip until soft peaks form (about 1 minute).  Gradually, add syrup in a fine stream.  Reduce speed of mixer and add vanilla.  Continue beating for 20 to 25 minutes or until mixture begins to lose its gloss.  If you wish, you can add candied cherries or chopped nuts at this point. We never did; we always had it plain.

 

Drop mixture from spoon onto waxed paper.

 

 

Carol Stetser

Researcher

 

 

Christmas Tree Traditions

December 22, 2023

Family historians are the keepers of their family’s traditions. Most of us are especially fond of holiday traditions, particularly Christmas. If you’re like me, I find it interesting to track how some holiday traditions have changed over the years. Christmas trees are a holiday staple in many homes.

 

Today it’s a few days before Christmas, and all the houses in town are showcasing lit Christmas trees in their windows. I’ve observed that most of those trees have been up since Thanksgiving weekend. The day after Christmas many of the trees will either be packed away for another year or will be piled up on the curb to be recycled. By that time, the trees will have been up for a month. Many people are sick of them and want them gone, the sooner the better.

 

It hasn’t always been this way. When I was young in the 1950s, we didn’t go to the tree lot to get a tree until at least the second week in December. After the tree was home, it was a longstanding argument in my family as to when it should be brought inside and decorated. My folks always wanted to wait until around the fifteenth of December. My siblings and I begged for it to go up as soon as we got home with it.

 

Once the trees of my childhood were in place, we usually kept them up until at least New Year’s Day. My mother, who wasn’t a big fan of the mess that trees made, often agitated to take them down a few days before New Year’s. If the tree we’d picked was dry, she sometimes won, but usually un-decorating the tree was a job for New Year’s Day.

 

Even earlier in the 1920s when my dad was young, his family always hiked up a nearby mountain on Thanksgiving weekend and cut down a tree. Although they cut their tree early, it didn’t come inside the house until Christmas Eve. On the day of Christmas Eve, the family decorated the tree. For my dad’s family, who were Scandinavian, the big meal as well as the gift giving happened on Christmas Eve. Although the Christmas celebration was over on Christmas Eve, my dad’s family enjoyed their Christmas tree for over a month afterwards. They never took down the tree until my aunt’s birthday – January 30.

 

According to my father, keeping the tree up so long wasn’t that unusual. Many of their neighbors did the same. Over the last hundred years, Christmas tree traditions have clearly changed. When my dad was born in 1925, most people didn’t decorate their trees until Christmas Eve. No wonder they wanted to enjoy them through January.

 

Through the years, most families seem to have agreed that the appropriate period to keep a tree in the house is somewhere between three and four weeks. It’s just that the timing of that Christmas tree month has shifted.

 

Christmas traditions are often passed down through the generations. As you enjoy the twinkling lights of your Christmas tree this year, you might want to consider how the view of what is an appropriate Christmas tree tradition may have changed in your own family.

 

Carol Stetser

Researcher