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Poster: Ahmad Gharbeia Date: Jan 6, 2021 6:40am
Forum: genealogy Subject: Personal documents' vault for fututre historians

I do not know whether this has been proposed and/or discussed here before, but wouldn't it be great to have the ability to upload scans and facsimiles of personal documents but keep them dark, or in a similar vault mechanism for some years?
I personally have an archive of digitised personal documents of my family, birth, marriage, and death certificates, identification documents, travel documents, school and university degrees, and others that I think would be useful to future historians. But because the subject persons are still alive or were only recently deceased, I would like to have the documents kept in some vault for a number of years.

Of course there could be the potential of abuse by persons who would try to use it as free private storage, but I argue that some measures in the design, mechanism and workflow could alleviate this.

Are there others here who would like to share their insights or opinions about this?

Regards,
This post was modified by Ahmad Gharbeia on 2021-01-06 14:40:34

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Poster: Barb1561 Date: Feb 23, 2021 7:33pm
Forum: genealogy Subject: Re: Personal documents' vault for fututre historians

You might contact a "Regional History and Genealogy Center" in your state and see if they have any suggestions. I think this is a terrific idea and I will ask at my local Regional Center.

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Poster: Ahmad Gharbeia Date: Feb 24, 2021 2:35am
Forum: genealogy Subject: Re: Personal documents' vault for fututre historians

Thanks for the suggestion, but I'm not from the USA, and no similar organisations exist in my country, unfortunately. I would have submitted the documents to the national archives, but it's controlled by the state security apparatus and doesn't give access to the public, in addition to being arcane and outdated in its processes and structures.

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Poster: BookSquirm Date: Oct 25, 2021 8:54pm
Forum: genealogy Subject: Re: Personal documents' vault for fututre historians

Have you thought about contacting the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints with your questions? They are also known as the "Mormons". They have a strong religious interest in preserving genealogical records from all over the world and are behind the familysearch.org website. (They keep all their original documents and filmed records in an enormous nuclear-bomb-proof vault built into a mountain in Utah.) At the very least, they will be happy to accept your family research records into their vast collection. Perhaps their main library in Salt Lake City, Utah can help you.
All the best genealogical luck!

This post was modified by BookSquirm on 2021-10-26 03:54:02

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Poster: idek15 Date: Jan 3, 2021 12:34pm
Forum: genealogy Subject: Re: Personal documents' vault for fututre historians

This is brilliant. It exists in some commercial archives, such as those owned by Ancestry.com. I hope the future brings a way for all family archive assets to be publicly shared. Too many families lose everything when the family historian dies. Your idea of future releases of documents sounds great.