Should I Donate Papers to an Archive or Museum?

First checks before you go further

Donation suits papers with wider research value and a safe home, while family retention suits papers whose value is mainly personal. Either choice is better when the papers are listed, copied and their story noted first.

A record you cannot place is not a wasted find. File it with its reference and its filters, and let a later record place it. Do not let the first record you find set the shape of the research. The first record is a starting point, and starting points are often unrepresentative.

Reading what the record actually says

A record that contradicts a family story is not necessarily wrong, and a story that contradicts a record is not necessarily false. Note both, and let dated entries decide, one at a time. Abbreviations are the easiest place to go wrong, because the same letters can stand for different things in different periods and different services. Do not extract a single line and discard the page. The page, the form, and the neighbouring entries are what give a line its meaning.

Dead ends to expect here

A dead end shared by many researchers is usually a coverage problem, not a personal one. The research guides for that record type will often say so plainly. A unit, ship or camp that cannot be fixed from the clues available is a reason to gather one more clue, not a reason to guess the most likely candidate. A search in the wrong language of indexing, modern terms for period records, will fail silently. Use the period terms the catalogue itself uses.

How do you work through it step by step?

A useful habit is to write the question at the top of your notes before each step, and the answer, with its reference, underneath it when the step ends. Alternate between personal records and unit records as the steps require. Personal records fix the person, unit records fix the place and the date, and both are needed.

1. Describe the item itself first: what it shows, what it says, and what marks it carries.
2. Date the item from its own clues, uniform, badge, format or handwriting, before attaching it to a person.
3. Use the dated item to frame a record search, unit, place or date, rather than as a substitute for one.
4. Note the item reference and where it is held, so the next researcher can find it.

What to open after this one

Work the chain one link at a time. A timeline built link by link can be checked; a timeline built by jumping to the most interesting record cannot. Let the question this record raised choose the next record. A record opened out of curiosity, rather than out of a question, rarely advances a timeline. Stop at the record that answers the question, and note the reference before moving on.