Resources for Family Folklife and History

Folklife | Manuals | Directories |Genealogy |Projects | Reunions |Collection Care | Print Publications

American Family History and Folklife Online Resource (Home) About this Resource Oral History Interviews Folklife and Fieldwork: A Layman's Introduction to Field Techniques Examples from the Projects and Collections of the American Folklife Center Resources in Family History and Folklife About the American Folklife Center

Folklife and Ethnographic Research

• What is folklife? American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.
• What is an ethnographic field collection? American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.
• A Commonwealth of Cultures. Booklet by Mary Hufford, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.
• The Folklife Sourcebook. American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.
• American Folklore Society.

Manuals, Guides, and Educational Resources

• Center for the Study of History and Memory. Indiana University. Educational materials for college-level instruction in history and ethnography.
• Cultural Heritage for Innovative Community Outreach (CHICO). University of Michigan School of Information. The CHICO web site includes many resources for the arts, cultural education, and community and family cultural expressions.
• Field Research Guides. Vermont Folklife Center. Includes guides to using digital recording equipment.
• Folklife and Fieldwork. Booklet by Peter Bartis, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress (online and in print. Spanish-language version available as a PDF online or in print).
• Folkpatterns Leader's Guide: A Cultural Heritage Program. Michigan State University. (Some educational materials are online and others are available for purchase). Folkpatterns is a cultural heritage program for children that encourages them to explore and document historical and traditional patterns such as games, stories, foods, family lore, art, celebrations, architecture, songs, and dance.
• The Legacy Guide. A manual designed to assist collectors of African American oral history (the link provided goes to an informational page that includes a link to download the 28 page manual in PDF format, 4.12 megabytes). Created by the National Visionary Leadership Project, an African American oral history project.
• One Minute Guide to Oral History. Regional Oral History Office, University of California at Berkeley.
• An Oral Historian’s Work: A Guide for Field Workers in Folklore and Oral History, by Edward D. Ives (video)
• The Smithsonian Folklife and Oral History Interviewing Guide. (online only). Marjorie Hunt, Smithsonian Institution. This and other educational resources in folklife and cultural research may be found on the Web site for the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage.
• Step-By-Step Guide to Oral History. dohistory.org
• Southern Oral History Program. University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
• Folklife Resources for Educators. American Folklife Center, Library of Congress. Database of educational materials provided by organizations throughout the United States, including materials to teach cultural documentation and oral history.

Directories of Folklife, Oral History, and Cultural Documentation Organizations

• State Arts Agency Directory. An online listing from the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies (NASAA).

• Folklife Sourcebook: A Directory of Folklife Resources in the United States. American Folklife Center, Library of Congress. An online state-by-state listing of federal agencies, archives, public programs, and other organizations.
• Oral History Association. International organization for oral history.
• Cyndi’s List of Genealogy Sites on the Internet: Oral History & Interviews. Compiled by Cyndi Howells.

Genealogy and Family History

• Bibliographies and Guides. Genealogy Reading Room, Library of Congress
• Tips for Locating Genealogical Resources in the Library of Congress Online Catalog. Genealogy Reading Room, Library of Congress.
• Internet Sources on Local History and Genealogy Genealogy Reading Room. Library of Congress.
• The National Genealogical Society.
• American Association of State and Local History.
  

Ongoing National Documentary Projects

Following is a list of ongoing projects that are engaged in collecting folklore and oral history to provide examples for researchers. Most of these sites also provide educational materials for teachers. Some projects may accept participation by people who wish to be interviewed or by interviewers who are able to provide interviews that meet their requirements.

• The American Century Project. St. Andrew's Episcopal School, Austin, TX (a student oral history project. For educational resources, see "Handouts for Students" and "Oral History in the Classroom For Educators.")
• The National Visionary Leadership Project. Thhis African American oral history project has created the Legacy Guide to assist collectors of African American oral history. In addition, the NVLP has created the National Registry of African American Oral Histories to provide a national database of these collections. A list of repositories that will accept collections from this project is also available on the web site.
• StoryCorps. A national non-profit project of Sound Portraits Productions undertaken in partnership with the Library of Congress. The web site provides information on the project and guidelines for participants. This organization and its web site are not part of the Library of Congress. The collections, however, are donated to the Library and are available in the American Folklife Center Reading Room.
• Veterans History Project. American Folklife Center, Library of Congress. Provides a fieldwork kit for the documentation of military and non-military participants in conflicts from World War I to the present. The video and audio recordings of these interviews will be housed at the American Folklife Cente and available to the public.

Family Reunions

• Family Reunion List. A list of online resources by Benjamin J. Ford, II. (This link is outside the Library of Congress site. It is a non-commercial site, providing links to both commercial and non-commercial resources. Included is a directory of family reunions in the U.S., organized by surname.)

Organizing and Caring for Information Collected in Your Family History Project

Archival Guides

• Caring for your Collections. Preservation Directorate, Library of Congress. Includes information on how to preserve recordings, photographs, films, videos, books, documents, and artifacts.
• Ethnographic Collections in the Archive of Folk Culture: A Contributor's Guide. A booklet by Stephanie A. Hall, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress. Includes advice that will help collectors organize, house, and mark collections to be kept at home and prepare materials for donation to an archive.
• Folklife and Fieldwork. Booklet by Peter Bartis, American Folklife Center (online and in print. Spanish-language version available in PDF online or in print).

Preservation of Family Treasures

General

• Conservation Online: Resources for Conservation Professionals. Stanford University
• Conserve O Grams. National Park Service. Technical leaflets. The documents are in PDF format.
• Council of State Archivists. Archival Resource Center.
• A Glossary of Archives and Records Management Terminology. Society of American Archivists.
• Library of Congress Fellowships, Internships and Workshops.
• Other Preservation Resources: Web links. Preservation Directorate, Library of Congress.

Paper Documents

• Deterioration and Damage Sources of Paper Materials. Smithsonian Institution. PDF, 4 pages, 29.8 kb.
• The Deterioration and Preservation of Paper: Some  Essential Facts. Preservation, Library of Congress
• Guide to Preservation Matting and Framing. Preservation, Library of Congress
• Handling Paper Artifacts. Smithsonian Institution. PDF, 3 pages, 35.7 kb.
• Housing and Environment Options for Paper Documents in Storage. Smithsonian Institution. PDF, 4 pages, 22.5 kb.
• How to Preserve Acidic Wood Pulp Paper. Conserve O Gram 19/24, National Park Service. PDF, 4 pages, 27.6 kb.
• Preserving Works on Paper: Manuscripts, Drawings, Prints, Posters, Maps, and Documents. Preservation Directorate, Library of Congress.

Albums, Bibles, Books, Diaries and Scrapbooks

• Care, Handling, and Storage of Books. Preservation Directorate, Library of Congress.
• Preservation of Scrapbooks and Albums. Preservation Directorate, Library of Congress.

Photographs including Negatives, Prints, Slides, and Transparencies

• Caring for Audio-Visual and Photographic Materials. Smithsonian Institution.
• Caring for Your Photograph Collections. Preservation Directorate, Library of Congress.

Recorded Sound, Film, Video, and Magnetic Computer Storage Media

• Care, Handling, and Storage of Motion Picture Film. Preservation Directorate, Library of Congress.
• Care of Archival Compact Disks.Conserve O Gram 19/19, National Park Service. PDF, 4 pages, 1.03mb.
• Creation, Care, and Storage of Digital Materials. National Park Service. A list of PDF documents.
• Cylinder, Disc, and Tape Care in a Nutshell. Preservation Directorate, Library of Congress.
• Digital and Electronic Documents, Images, Tape, and Family Web sites: Digital Preservation. Preservation Directorate, Library of Congress.
• Magnetic Media Preservation: A Selected Bibliography. Preservation Directorate, Library of Congress.

Art and Artifacts

• Museum Conservation Institute: Taking Care Section. Smithsonian Institution. Includes information on appraisals, dating of artifacts, and caring for antique communication devices, furniture and wooden objects, ivory objects, antique armaments, dolls and toys, musical boxes, musical instruments, old houses, paintings, and antique textiles.

Emergency Procedures

• Disaster Guidance. Smithsonian Museum Conservation Institute.
• Disaster Preparedness and Response Links from the Conservation Online Listserv. Stanford University.
• Emergency Drying Procedures for Water Damaged Collections. Preservation Directorate, Library of Congress.
• A Primer for Disaster Preparedness, Management, and Response: Paper-Based Materials. Library of Congress, National Archives and Records Administration, National Park Service, and Smithsonian Institution. 

Print Publications on Family Foklife and Oral History

• Cutting-Baker, Holly, and Amy Kotkin. Family Folklore. Washington, DC: Family Folklife Program, Smithsonian Institution, National Park Service, 1976.
• Linda Barnickel. Oral History for the Family Historian. Booklet from the Oral History Association, Carlisle, PA, 2006. Print publication $15.00.
• Zeitlin, Steve, Amy Kotkin, and Holly Cutting-Baker. A Celebration of American Family Folklore: Tales and Traditions From the Smithsonian Collection. New York: Pantheon Books, 1982.
• Bogart, Barbara Allen and William Lynwood Montell. From Memory to History: Using Oral Sources for Historical Research. Nashville, TN: American Association for State and Local History, 1981.