Oooh I found a treasure in a car boot sale today...

[Maggie.]

Ooooh Ann in the UK, that is shocking! I'm very lucky with family bibles etc... They've all been kept in good condition.

I know...still makes me cringe 4 years after I found out.....

My mum and her brother had a bonfire in the back yard of photos, letters and stuff after the death of their mother..... my gran had by all accounts made them promise to do so.

I also still cringe at the thought of all those lost gems 

[Ringoroses]

A bonfire? That's even more tragic than going to landfill!

[Maggie.]

Exactly my thoughts, Ann .......... I have never fully recovered from the shock of being told of this devastating act 

[shellyesq]

All these trashings make me sad.  A similar thing happened in my husband's family.

According to my husband's grandmother, her mother had gotten an invitation to a Presidential inauguration, as she was a distant cousin of the President.  Husband's grandmother had kept the invitation in a scrapbook.  When she went on her honeymoon, her sister, who had shared a bedroom with her, threw out the scrapbook.   

[flipflops]

My sister lost almost everything whem she was taken into hospital for a couple of weeks. She'd been living in rented property and came 'home' to find the landlord had had it demolished  - along with virtually all her stuff and that was the end of all her  treasures and keepsakes

[mhomac]

I had an antique rocking chair, given to me by an elderly relative, which although it squeeked I loved to bits. One bonfire night I came home to discover my chair had gone. A friend of my mothers convinced her that it was taking up too much space in the room and threw the chair on the bonfire!.
Needless to say I never forgave her and didn't speak to my mother for ages.
I should add I was only 9 at the time!!

[Pastmagic]

My mother, god bless her, kept all sorts of stuff! In the last year, my cousins started a  Facebook
site and now there are 37 family members on this private group, so everything from 1900,s letters to spoons and  bibles have been photographed. 700 items in all. I avoided  Facebook for years, but this is working surprisingly well - new photos etc - and many many stories that would not have got shared. It also involves people from six continents, as we went and found what happened to people who emmigrated...

It might be worth scanning in that car boot find and putting it on the rootschat resources.

[manonros]

That's a good idea pastmagic , I shall do that at the weekend. There is a definate feeling of "this should be available to people who want it!" as I know that there are people who are looking into the lives of those very people right now.

[bobby Taylor]

nice find