Saturday, April 27, 2019

A to Z April Challenge: X is for Xerocopy


This is a continuation of LAST APRIL’s challenge about HEIRLOOMS. When my sister and I cleaned out our parents’ home, we had to make many decisions about what to do with all the stuff. Which things are truly “valuable” and which have only sentiment in their favor? Should we sell it, keep it, or throw it away? To help ensure a future for our family’s heirlooms, I plan to leave a booklet for my daughters telling the stories of what they will inherit one day. (Not TOO soon, I hope!)

is for Xerocopy.

Simply put - document copies, like from a Xerox machine even if the machine was NOT Xerox but a different brand, Canon or HP, for example.

A couple years ago, I finally went through my cardboard box of copies of documents that I had gathered about my various family lines and organized them into binders, one for each major line. Looks neat and organized, don’t you agree?


But inside the binders, it’s a mess. Smart family historians and genealogists insert divider tabs for individual people in that line, or for types of documents such as Census, Deeds, Wills, etc. Not me. Each document is in a clear sleeve, but there is no order to how they are arranged in the binder.

At least they’re in a binder on a shelf.
 
Bookshelf in the "gene cave"

“Making copies” - one of my favorite skits from "Saturday Night Live." There was a time when we all started talking like Richard.

Wendy! Wendita. The Wendenator. Making copies and keeping up with the Challenge! The Wendmeister~

Wendy
© 2019, Wendy Mathias. All rights reserved.

20 comments:

  1. Well that was an unfamiliar term, though logical once you explained it. My files are the reverse of yours - tidied (mostly) inside, by type of document but untidy on the spine. I should be inspired to follow your design style....but will I?

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    1. And I should be inspired to organize the inside, but will I?

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  2. Your binders look so neat with identical lettering and those cute little 🌲
    www.findingeliza.com

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  3. When we had to move my late mother in law into a nursing home last year - oh yes, heirloom or not? The really sad thing is, family members did not want anything. I understand this is actually not uncommon. You are a lot more organized than I am. Visiting from A to Z. Alana ramblinwitham.blogspot.com

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    1. Yes, that's the way with many people. I expect my girls won't want much of my stuff either, and they have permission to do whatever they want since they really didn't know the people who owned it first.

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  4. Really...no tabs or divider pages! So, WOW, your binders are amazing with the spine labels and everything in clear page protectors. Without tabs and divider pages I'd think you would get to review more info while looking for something specific. I know I often run across stuff I'd completely forgotten about...a good source for more posts.

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    1. Well see, there's the upside of disorganization.

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  5. This is such a surprise, Wendy, to learn that you don't have the insides of your binders organized in any way other than family! Wow. If you want to find a document in a binder, do you have to page through all of the documents? I used binders, too, but they're not even identical and not all have names on the spines, though I know which is for which family.

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    1. HA - I guess I must appear more organized than I am. I've never felt like it takes too long to flip through so I haven't been frustrated enough to do anything about it.

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  6. Good that you have the binders, even if they may (or may not) be organized the way they "should" be.

    betty

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  7. You are very organized, pretty binders! And as we can't see inside, it's ok ;))

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  8. They look so nice on your shelf! They match! They have cute spines! I use binders. They don't match. Most don't have the place to stick in the paper label, so I've put sticky address labels on them that are falling off. Some are organized inside. Some have had their insides removed and not put back. Some are waiting for piles of papers to be put inside. Oh well!

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    1. Yeah, this is a case of "it's better to LOOK good than to BE good."

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  9. Nice use of the X! At least you have binders - I'm lucky if I get things put into a manila file folder. Probably more than 80% of my things are stuffed into boxes.

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    1. One of these days your great-grands will be saying, "I'm so glad Grandma Debi was a packrat."

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