April 7, 2023
Like most genealogists of a “certain” age, I still have lots of paper files. You’re probably thinking that I ought to be scanning the files and then tossing the paper copies. I know that would be ideal, but I have four filing cabinets tightly packed with files, and I just can’t face the prospect of spending weeks (months?) sitting at my computer scanning.
My default option has been to scan files as I use them. This week I got curious about my great grandfather’s family. I have a lot of records digitized for them, but I found that I had a stack of paper files as well.
As I sorted through them, I found that many of the records were duplicates of my digitized records. I was able to quickly fill a garbage can with these duplicates. But then I was stopped in my clearing-out tracks.
I found a folder containing copies of all seven censuses in which my grandfather appeared. I haven’t made a paper copy of a census for decades. Why would I? It’s so easy just to save a digital copy from a website. However, seeing those old copies reminded me of a time when finding someone in a census record was a big deal.
Censuses were available on microfilm twenty or so years ago, but not locally. I remember many days spent in Denver at the Public Library or the regional branch of the National Archives. Occasionally, a trip to Salt Lake City to the Family History Library gave me some census scrolling time.
In those days most of the censuses were not indexed. Searching manually through the microfilm wasn’t too difficult if someone lived in a small town. Finding an ancestor in a big city was almost impossible.
It often took hours of scrolling through microfilms to locate one person. I remember being absolutely thrilled when I found my husband’s great grandfather in New Jersey. It confirmed his parents were who I thought they were. I remember calling across the library to get my husband’s attention. The other patrons didn’t seem irritated by the commotion. They just smiled at me; they were genealogists themselves and knew how excited I felt. They’d been there themselves.
Having found a census record, you wanted to make the best copy possible. That meant paying the extra price for an 11” x 17” copy. You could get the whole page on that size of paper and still be able to read it. Over the years I must have made hundreds of those big 11” x 17” copies.
That’s what I found in my great grandfather’s files the other day – a stack of neatly folded 11” x 17” census copies. Remembering how much effort it took to find those old copies, I couldn’t bring myself to throw them out.
I know that eventually someone, maybe even me, is going to throw those copies away. No one is ever going to find them useful again.
Still, I couldn’t trash them – at least not yet. I still have way too many paper files jammed into my filing cabinets. Now you know why.
Carol Stetser
Researcher