Some people like to use 3-D decorations in their heritage scrapbooks of the ancestors, but I, personally, don’t like bumpy albums with dented pages. I do like using personal keepsakes, however, that bring my ancestors to life and thought I would compile a list of flat ephemera one could use. Take time to plunder the attics, closets, dressers, hope chests, jewelry boxes, junk drawers, photo albums, recipe boxes, scrapbooks, sewing cabinets, and writing desks of your grand-relatives for mementoes before the estate sale.
Note: Reproduce good quality permanent copies of paper documents at your local printer and archive the originals in a fireproof document box. Ink-jet photocopies are temporary in nature and might fade over time.
address labels, alphabet stencils (new and used), autographs, baseball trading cards, botanical illustrations, bookmarks, calling/business cards, cancelled checks, car keys, certificates (adoption, award, birth, church membership, death, guarantees, marriage, military, prize, stock, Sunday School promotion, warranties) children’s artwork, church bulletins, clothing tags, candy packaging labels (candy bar, crackerjack, gum wrappers, Valentine), dance cards, desk calendar pages, dog tags, flashcards, garden catalogs, garden seed packets, hair ribbons, embroidery thread, favorite poetry (Bible verses, quotes), feathers, flattened spice tin fronts, foreign coins (tokens), funeral leaflets, graduation diploma, handwritten recipes, hankies, images from a favorite book, lace, lacy gloves, ledger, library cards, guest-books (guest check receipts), journal and diary accounts, letters, a lock of hair (hair-nets), locker tag, maps (paper), menus, old-fashioned packaging labels, old greeting cards, old schoolbook pages, measuring tapes, needle threader, newspaper clippings, old magazine ads, old patterns (envelopes with images and tissue patterns), old typewriter keys, paper doilies, paper dolls, patches, photos of heirlooms (favorite toys), photographs of their homes, perfume bottle labels, pinked swatches of calico and gingham feedsack fabric, playing cards, postcards, pressed flowers, printed tablecloths,
quilt patterns, receipts, report cards, rickrack, school papers, a sequin from a special dress, sheet metal jewelry (photos of jewelry), sheet music, silhouettes, slides, stereoscopic viewing cards, suitcase stickers, theater programs, ticket stubs, traced hands or feet cut-outs, travel brochures, utility bills/receipts, used envelopes, used postage stamps, vintage Valentines, vintage wrapping paper, wallpaper remnants, watch parts (crystals, faces, hands, gears), wedding invitations, and wedding dress fabric.
Postscript: I stumbled across a Civil War quilt blog and she had an article on Albums: Silk and Paper. Another item to add to the list to look for!
Compiled by Dolores J. Rush, Updated: 9/29/2019
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