Gerty Dancer is right, War Memorial, Canberra. Been doing the family tree and stuff like you have is pure treasure. Accessible to historians and amatuers, history is ours to be shared. You can also always get it back if you need to. It is only on loan!
-- Edited by Boothie on Monday 28th of January 2013 10:09:33 PM
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Never growing old, just getting dusty around the edges.
Do we have any world world 1 history buffs on this board? I'm in possession of a ww1 hand written diary of a digger from a long ago relative. Not sure what to do with it. Possibly donate it to national archives? Is it worth anything? Sell it? If I keep it, would there be a preferred way to store it so it doesn't rot?
War Memorial is good, but there is a really good Museum on Yorke Peninsula, Bublacowie Military Musuem, that has "stuff" from all wars. they might be interested also.
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Pay it forward - what goes around comes around
DUNMOWIN is no longer on the road and still DUNMOWIN!
In addition to the good suggestions above I would suggest scanning them into your computer if this is possible and/or photocopying them. (The binding of the diary may make this difficult to do however, you're the best judge of this).
The information in the diary may be of value to future generations of your family doing genealogy research.
I have also noticed that when people are handling old documents in libraries, museums etc they always wear gloves to avoid the natural oils and chemicals in the skin from coming in contact with the paper.
I would agree with previous posters that the War Memorial is the best place for it. As Boothie pointed out when you send an article to the War Memorial, it is on loan and if you wanted to get it back you could.
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If there is such a thing as a tourist season.... why cant we shoot them?
Agree with the others. The other place is the Mitchel Library in NSW- must have something similar in other states. The point is, this stuff is precious, too precious to be allowed to deteriorate in some one's shed or garage. It needs to be stored and preserved well. It also needs to be shared. There are so many people hanging onto diaries and photos because they don't know what else to do with them.
Make it available to others.
If it it really great stuff, make sure it goes to some place that knows how to preserve paper, and how to make good quality digitalised copies without destroying/damaging the originals - which is probably only the National War Memorial.
A person in my family ( a bit removed) sent some valuable books from the family to the state library in SA for evaluation and now we cant even see them unless we make an appointment and then we have to have some one change the pages etc. The books were in the possession of my grandmother and they asked to borrow for a while. She never saw them again and she never got over it as she considered it was her duty to keep safe for future generations. We are not allowed to photograph or copy them. Considered a national treasure. One is the family diary brought from Ireland in the 1800's giving all the family tree in the front. The other is a rare book written by my great great great grandfather. Me and my family will never get to see them. Be sure to check that your family will have access at a later time if this is your wish. IF you wish them to be retained consider the regiment archives. Usually the numbers continue so 1/27 Ist world war became 2/27 and now I assume would be just 27th regiment etc etc. Regards Brian
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11 Mtr house Boat based at Mannum hoping to travel up the Murray as far as I can get then drift back again
Hard to be believe but the war memorial and other places haven't even responded back to me. Guess I'll just wrap it in plastic and keep it for a while.
Hard to be believe but the war memorial and other places haven't even responded back to me. Guess I'll just wrap it in plastic and keep it for a while.
I think that they are pretty snowed under and may take a while to respond. Best bet is to provide all the details you can of units, whereabouts, rank and naturally name. That way, they may be able to prioritise. The other thing is to do a search of your relatives details on the website. They will either have stuff already in the national archives, or basic stuff such as military records, pay books and sickness records. An example of this was one of my relatives who got into trouble in Egypt for getting tattoos and another thing, twice, which caused him to see the doctor, suffer pain and get disciplined. They actually didn't say what the disease was!
Be careful wrapping it plastic, certain plastics can cause deterioation of the paper. I would ring the state museum or email them and ask for advice.
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Never growing old, just getting dusty around the edges.
