Years ago, I wrote a piece entitled “Cleaning Mother’s House.” The fictionalized piece was created from several real life snippets that have been passed along to me over the years.

It still should give those who haven’t thought about what will happen to their genealogical materials a reason to pause. Preserving your materials is something that needs to be done by the creator of those materials before it is too late. Leaving it to your survivors–even with a will–is no guarantee it happens.

Unorganized materials are more likely to be discarded.

Materials that are simply copies of records available elsewhere are usually not desired by libraries and archives. They want unique materials.

Don’t let your materials become another snippet for an update to  “Cleaning Mother’s House.”