Among the materials found in many special genealogical collection are things that have been donated by patrons or their families. I use the term "things" because it encompasses a wide group of materials that libraries receive—some that are most welcome and some not quite so welcome. In fact, there are a lot of donations that are an extreme burden to a library.

In "Along Those Lines . . ." this week, I'd like to discuss the concept of what materials can and should be donated to libraries and some examples of things that should not be donated. I'd also like to address the issue of cataloging in the library and what you can and cannot reasonably expect.

Making Arrangements for Donating Materials
You have invested endless hours and countless trips to libraries, archives, courthouses, government offices, cemeteries, and other venues to obtain information about your ancestors. You may have purchased genealogical software and produced a database of all the information you've acquired. In the process, you dutifully input source citations using acceptable bibliographic citation standards and made note of the repository where the materials are stored. You probably have binders, file cabinets, boxes and/or folders containing the originals, or copies of many of these materials so that you can refer to them again as needed. Perhaps you also have boxes or albums of family photographs, and hopefully these are labeled. What is going to happen to all this research after you're gone?

I always encourage family historians to look within their own families for potential heirs to the research collection. Look for family members who may share your passion for the family genealogy and who appear to be candidates to carry on the research tradition and the continuation of the recording of family events. Certainly you want someone to preserve the materials you've amassed, and not stow them in a damp and moldy basement or, worse yet, throw them out. Yes, it freezes the blood to think about that prospect! The time to locate an heir to the collection is now. Don't surprise your favorite nephew or niece with this "special bequest" in your will unless you know for certain that he or she will welcome it.

And what will happen if you cannot locate such an heir? Will you make other arrangements, perhaps donate the materials to a genealogical society, a library, or an archive? Will they accept your materials in total or will they only be interested in a portion of the collection? Will they require funding to house, maintain, and catalog your materials? These are all questions you need to ask yourself—and others—before you make a bequest in a will or make a donation while you are still living!

Another question is whether there are materials or information you have that could benefit others if they were placed in a library's reference collection today? For example, would copies of your pedigree charts and family group sheets be helpful to someone researching in the local library where those ancestors lived? Certainly, family group sheets about my Maryland, North Carolina, and Georgia ancestors would probably be of little interest or use to anyone if I placed them in the Tampa-Hillsborough Public Library, especially if none of these people or their descendants ever lived there. You have to consider where the materials will be of the most interest, where they will be most used, who will use them, and whether it is practical to donate some or all of the materials. A copy of the original land grant for Caswell County, NC, for instance, would be of especial interest to persons in that area or perhaps to the North Carolina State Archives. Copies of my family group sheets regarding the NC patriot, John McKnitt ALEXANDER, would be of interest in the libraries in Mecklenburg County, NC, where he lived, and in Cecil County, MD, from whence he migrated to NC. They might also be of interest to the Olde Mecklenburg [County] Genealogical Society.

The point is, you must give careful thought to what materials you have and where they might do the most good.

Things That Libraries Probably Don't Want
As president of my seminar company, I work with library consortia and cooperatives across Florida. I teach literally thousands of library personnel each year. I visit many libraries as a result of this work and, whenever I travel across the country, I always try to visit libraries and check out their unique collections. As a result, I talk with hundreds of librarians each year and hear the stories of the origins of some of their donated materials. Almost every library has a story that begins with, "You won't believe this one, but . . . " Oh yes, I would! Here are some examples.

An elderly genealogist died, and in her will she bequeathed her entire genealogical collection to the small local public library. When the executor and her son showed up with the U-Haul truck, the library was astounded to received over 300 books about German genealogy, most written in German. Then came more than twenty cartons of photocopies, letters, and other documents, all unorganized except for a printed surname on the outside of each of the boxes. A separate carton of family photographs, most unlabeled, completed the collection. The family had no use for these materials and the executor said, "Well, she left all this stuff to you. I'm sure you have space for this and can organize it. After all, you are librarians."

The library now had a mess in its back room and had to figure out how to deal with it. The library director had an employee use a word processor program to type up a list of the book titles in a text file format. Since she had no space or use for all the German books, and belongs to a mailing list of librarians serving genealogists, she sent a message to the other subscribers on the mailing list asking if anyone had interest in these books. If so, they were to e-mail her and she would send the text file to them. The books were free to any other library that wanted them for only the price of shipping. It took several months, but most of the books found homes in other libraries. As for the cardboard boxes, the county genealogical society and the library are working through the boxes, mostly discarding materials that meant something only to the genealogist who donated her collection. What a pity there was no family member interested in the materials!

Another genealogist who had retired with his wife to Florida, decided that the local library would like to have his collection of Victorian funeral brooches he had collected, as well as all their binders containing the family genealogy from another part of the country. While the brooch collection had some financial value, the library had no desire to own and maintain the collection. They therefore sold it and used the money to develop the library's collection. As for the genealogical binders, the library contacted a genealogical society in the genealogist's old home state, and the collection has now been placed in their society's collection. This is a happy ending for the collection, but it took a great deal of the library's time to liquidate the materials.

Still another family historian donated her many scrapbooks and photograph albums. The scrapbooks were all of a personal nature and related to family events, news items, sports teams, and various other topics. The photograph albums contained family pictures, most of which were carefully labeled and preserved. The library found no genealogical or historical value in the materials and didn't want to house them. It expended a great deal of effort until a relative was located who reluctantly accepted the materials. Some such donations do not have such a happy ending.

The point is that you should never assume that a library has unlimited space and a wild desire to accept whatever you want to donate. Don't assume that they want books about other states and countries or unorganized/unfiled papers about families with no connection to the area. These materials are a burden to the library and must somehow be liquidated or placed with libraries elsewhere.

Donations That Libraries May Be Willing to Accept
If you want to make information and materials available today, they may be of benefit to other researchers. They may also bring your research some exposure to other library researchers that may cause them to contact you. Consider the idea of placing copies of your pedigree charts and family group sheets in a library where others are likely to locate them. When on vacation last summer, I stopped into the Laurens Public Library in Laurens, SC. I found an excellent genealogical collection in a separate room and a helpful librarian who knew her collection in detail. She guided me to the vertical files—file cabinets with file folders grouped by surname or individual. Here I located a number of files containing pedigree charts and family group sheets prepared by other researchers from as far away as Alabama, California, and Canada. Each one was dated and contained the name and address of the contributor. I made copies of these and, on returning home, wrote letters to each person. I received some responses and began correspondence with two researchers that have resulted in extending my research and theirs. The summer before, I obtained one set of pedigree charts at the Rome, GA library which resulted in connections to a whole new family line I have been able to trace back eleven generations.

Libraries are certainly interested in copies of books pertaining to the local area and local families. Unfortunately, library funding is always limited, and the addition of donated books to build the local history collection are usually welcomed. In some cases, libraries are interested in accepting donated periodicals to which they do not subscribe. Perhaps you subscribe to Ancestry Magazine, Everton's Genealogical Helper, Heritage Quest, or to the state genealogical/historical society journal. If you plan to discard them after you've read them, why not ask the library if they are interested? You can donate these and use them whenever you like, knowing you have conserved space at home and have potentially helped other researchers.

Libraries may be interested in letters, journals, and diaries that relate to local people, events, and history. It is always best to ask first to see if there is any interest in the materials and space to house them. It is important to ask in advance whether the library is interested in what you have to offer. If not, they can try to help you locate other places that are more appropriate to accept your materials or make suggestions.

What Can You Reasonably Expect
Libraries have limited space for storage, limited numbers of people to catalog and maintain collections, and limited budgets to fund development of collections and insurance of materials in the library. Many libraries do not have genealogical collections. Rather, such collections may be housed in a central facility with a "special collections" area and a budget with which to administer it. The library incurs a cost for every piece of material donated. This includes the cost of shelving units or filing cabinets, the cost of labeling books or creating labeled file folders, the cost of creating a record for every item in the library's online card catalog, and the cost of insurance for the collection.

Because a library must carefully budget and account for how it spends its funds, unexpected donations can add a physical and financial burden to a library's already tight budget. The initial cost of organizing, cataloging, and filing a hundred file folders may cost your library several hundred dollars. Therefore, it sometimes isn't feasible for the library to catalog many of the materials it receives. These items may be filed in the vertical files. Even in larger libraries, the ones with special collections that include genealogical materials, personnel constraints may preclude the cataloging of the sheer volume of donated pedigree charts, family group sheets, letters, and other documents. That means that when you go to the online card catalog, you may not find any listing for a surname or individual. There may, however, be a vertical file folder sitting in a drawer chock full of information you could use. Always ask about any uncataloged materials in vertical files, boxes, or in the back room. The librarians can't read you mind, so be sure and ask.

Making the Decision
As you consider what genealogical materials you want to donate, consider whether the library you have in mind can accommodate your donate and what they might be able to do with it. Make contact with the library director and/or the head of the genealogical special collection, and ask whether what you want to donate is welcome. This is a form of "planned giving," of course, and requires some planning so as to create a benefit and not a burden. Ask for clarification and assistance in placing your materials. The library can share the benefit of its experience with you.

Happy hunting!

George

The article originally appeared in the Genealogy Forum on America Online. You may send e-mail to alonglines@aol.com. George Morgan would like to hear from you but, because of the volume of e-mail, is unable to personally respond to each letter individually. He also regrets that he cannot assist you with your personal genealogical research. Visit George Morgan's new Web page at: http://members.aol.com/alonglines.

George is also the author of The Genealogy Forum on America Online, which is available in the Ancestry Online Store at: http://shop.myfamily.com/ancestrycatalog/
product.asp?pf%5Fid=1101046&dept%5Fid=10102000.