The paper is falling apart

Do this today

Photograph everything, now, badly if necessary. A phone photograph of a page that later crumbles is worth infinitely more than a perfect scan you did not get around to. Do the most fragile items first. Do not stop to repair, sort or flatten anything.

Then put the photographs in two separate places — a computer and a flash drive kept somewhere else, or a computer and a second person's computer. A single copy is not a backup, and the phone in your pocket is the least safe place any of this could live.

What not to do

• No tape. Not any kind, not "archival" tape from a craft shop. Adhesive is what turns a repairable tear into permanent damage and a brown stain, and it is very hard to undo.
• Do not laminate. Ever. It is irreversible and it will finish the document off over time.
• Do not unfold anything brittle. A folded plat map that crackles will tear along every crease. Photograph it folded, in sections, and get advice before opening it.
• Do not clean, erase, or "tidy" old pencil. The margin notes are records too.
• Do not throw the original away once it is scanned. The original is the evidence; the scan is a copy of it.

Storing what survives

Cool, dry, dark, and off the floor. Stable conditions matter more than ideal ones — a closet in the middle of a heated building beats a basement or an attic every time, because the damage comes from the swings. Get things out of plastic sleeves and rubber bands, both of which do slow harm. Flat storage beats a binder for anything loose.

What to transcribe first

You will not transcribe everything, so choose in this order:

• Anything that exists only once and is actively deteriorating. Fading and mould do not pause.
• The lot and deed records. These are the ones that establish who owns what, and they are the ones you will be asked to produce.
• The burial register.
• Everything else, as time allows, forever.

Type what the page says, including the parts that look wrong. Put your corrections in a separate note rather than over the top of the original reading — a transcription that quietly "fixes" a name has destroyed the evidence it was made from.

Getting help

Your state historical society or state archive will usually give a small cemetery advice for free, and some run preservation grant programmes. County genealogical societies are often willing to help transcribe, and are frequently better at reading nineteenth-century handwriting than anyone on your board. For a document that genuinely matters and is genuinely failing, a professional paper conservator is worth the call before anybody attempts a repair.

Where Sexton fits

Sexton is where the transcription goes once it exists. Type it into a spreadsheet, drop the file in, match the columns, and it becomes a searchable register with a plot map, at no extra charge — and the register writes back out to plain spreadsheets any time, so the work you did is never locked inside one program.

The photographs from step one stay where you put them. Keeping the paper safe is the part no software does for you, and it is the part that matters most.