Katherine Scott Sturdevant

I am only giving this book 3 and a half stars not because it wasn't useful, but because I found the title somewhat undescriptive of what turned out to be the content. While the book did touch on organization and preservation of family documents, those sections were pretty basic and didn't go into as much detail as I was hoping to find. (Although I did get some good ideas, like giving my collection of family papers a name. I was particularly disappointed, however, by the limited discussion of how best to order papers - chronologically, by person, etc., and of the complete lack of any examples of systems for filing and naming documents). Most of the book was about using family documents as the basis for publishing projects of one sort or another - mostly, putting together a book based on family documents. Interesting, and it did give me a few ideas of projects I might do (and ways in which I can improve my collection, like annotating documents for which I have additional associated information). So, it was a worthwhile read, just not exactly what I had been expecting.… (more)