Ancestors Journals

My mother wrote in journals or the last 15 years of her life. I do not want to continue to store these journals and I know my children do not want to store them either. I know that sounds terrible but they take up a lot of room. But I can't just throw them out - that would be a sin!

I have a suggestion and some people still think it is a sin but I think it is the best solution that covers both problems.

I am scanning in all her journals into pdf documents.

• I can give each of my children a copy for them to read and pass on to their children. They read only only or tablet/phone because they don't read physical books anymore.
• They can see her writing style.
• They get to know her, what matters to her, what she liked and didn't like or what bothered her
• Sharing these digital books also a great backup if something happens to my copy. 
• I can get rid of several boxes under my stairs which I don't want and neither do my children. 
• If my basement is ever flooded all the books would be ruined. This won't happen to digital copies stored in several locations, digitally.

My steps

1.

Write a page number at the bottom of each page if there isn’t one there. This will take just a few minutes but can save you an hour of work later. I didn’t do that on my first yearbook, and it took my awhile to figure out the order of the pages to put all the pages together. I was lucky because photos and topics in the yearbook helped. My mother did not put a date at the top of each page. Dates are in journals but not as easy to sort as a part number.

2.

Cut the pages out of the book if not a binder. I use an X-acto (razor) knife.

3.

Scan in each page. Make sure you have the setting on double sided if the pages are written on both sides. When scanning you can choose to either save as individual pages or save it as one document. My scanner sometimes takes more than one page through at one time. This causes problems if I create a document all at once. If there are any problems when scanning you have to start the scanning over but individual pages also has many issues that might take more time afterwards. Getting the pages in order as individual files. Renaming the files might help get them in order. If you save each page individually as you scan you then have to combine the files later.

4.

Check to make sure all the pages are scanned and they look good.

5.

If you scanned in the document to save as individual pages, instead of one document, combine the pages into one document. Delete the individual pages.

6.

Upload to the web where you can share with your family.

7.

Share the document with family. The type of scanner makes a difference.

Good luck!