Well, I’ve mentioned in a previous post that I recently “inherited” all of the negatives that were my grandmother’s. It doesn’t look like she ever threw any of them away (just like me!) so there’s QUITE a collection! The majority of the negatives came from her Hawkeye Brownie camera, so they are not a standard size. I was having quite a dilemma over what to do with them. It didn’t take me long to realize that I was going to have a massive headache from trying to look at them by holding them up to the light. And in all of the research that I did on negative scanners, I could only find information for scanners that did slides or 35mm film. So this is my solution for now.
I’m taking the most interesting negatives (the ones that are black and white and are not obvious to me as to identification) and scanning them. Then, I can make them as large as my screen and I can play with the brightness levels to make them as “readable” as possible without actually developing them. I’m going to put them into a slide show of sorts to show my aunts and uncles along with any hints my grandmother left – such as labels on the envelopes, etc. I’ve included an example above. My mother does not recognize this house or can even think of where it might be so the woman is a mystery. This negative is included in a set of negatives of my great-uncle at his military base, so I’m estimating the year to be around 1942 when he would have been 20 years old.
My next decision is to decide how I’m going to preserve these negatives. All of my negatives are in archival negative sleeves from Light Impressions, but Grandma’s negatives would not fit in standard negative sleeves. My sleeves are in chronological order in 2 large binders with labels on each page. I’ve always thought that those would be a salvation for my soul if I ever lost my photo albums to fire or tornado. Of course, it would probably work out alot better if I didn’t have them stored in the same location as my albums! Better put “take negatives to Mom’s house” to my summer “to do” list!
The Shy Genealogist 