With spring cleaning in the air, people with old hand-written material like letters, family account books, diaries, house deeds or wills might be tempted to bin the lot, doubting if they could be of any historical or commercial value.
But while material from the 19th or early 20th centuries is more likely to be of interest, family papers from as late as the 1950s or 1960s could be of historical or commercial value.
Even when facts detailed in documents are already known, "material that will bring facts to life and put a human face and personalities to it" will be of interest, says Mr Noel Kissane, keeper of manuscripts at the National Library in Dublin. "We're now into the 21st century, so things from the latter part of the last century are starting to become [of historical interest]," he says.
Material from the 1950s or 1960s most likely to be of interest would be documents that add to our knowledge of the period, such as diaries or letters with a lot of political or social comment. "If you get, say, a series of letters from a relative in America, and if he talks about the problems, say, of finding employment or problems say to do with race or if he's involved in any kind of movements or politics, they may very well be of interest."
Clearly, any hand-written material to do with a historical personality such as Daniel O'Connell, Patrick Pearse or literary personalities like W.B. Yeats or Brendan Behan could be valuable.
Equally, material which has bearing on some historical incident, such as 1798 or 1916 or the labour strike of 1913 would be of interest but, he admits, "those sort of things don't grow on trees".
Material to do with the second World War such as ration books or minutes from local security committees are of interest.
Wills can be of interest because "sometimes there might be peculiar conditions in the will. A lot of these things, they give you an idea into the way people looked at things and the way their minds worked."
If it isn't of national interest, it could very well be of local interest. Mr Kissane suggests taking along family documents in the first instance to your local library or museum. If they're interested, you could donate, lend or sell it to the library or museum. Says Mr Kissane: "To be honest, libraries, generally speaking, would prefer to get the material either to buy it or to get it as a donation because the ownership thing is a bit awkward in that it goes into the library. They may spend a fair amount of time cataloguing it or sometimes they might need conservation and so on. And then the next generation of the family might decide they want them back. And they're listed on catalogues and that sort of thing. It's messy."
Mr Kissane sees donating material to a library as "practical patriotism". It's also a good way of commemorating family history, without trying to put a price on a piece of family history.
But if it is to be sold to a library, including the National Library, the price is a matter of negotiation. "One can always get them valued by one of the auctioneers. They are people as well who would tell you whether material was worth keeping. Say Mealy's in Castlecomer, they do book auctions and they also do documents. Another place is Whyte's in Marlborough Street who do a lot of that kind of thing. We don't like talking about national heritage in money terms. But I think what you do is you talk to Fonsie Mealy [telephone: 056 41229] or Ian Whyte [01 874 6161] and they would give you a fair idea."
jmarms@irish-times.ie
