Document Digital Restoration 

As in a restoration of an original painting, restoring original documents will cost you your first born.  Digital scanning and restoration is the only way to go for most of us.  There are many reason why people restore documents.  Not just to share with relatives but to have a copy in tow when we are doing our researching, you won't want to carry the original around to further degrade it would you?  You may want to restore a document that you plan on publishing in your family biography.  Documents like newspapers are brittle and scanning them is a way of preserving the document or the very least the information that is in them.

Samples of:

Mold Damage

Newspaper Print

Sample of document made to look like new.

Genealogy Tip

Some documents are attractive enough to display. By restoring and enlarging them will enable you to read them.  To minimize handling of documents this fragile, make copies.  The torn edges are left on purpose to keep and antique appearance.  

Submitted by Nancy Beer, German Baptism Certificate.

Mold Damage

Store paper items flat in acid-free file folders, folding and unfolding is more damaging. Avoid using pressure-sensitive tapes (including those called "archival") they cause color deterioration, become brittle and alter inks. Read more on preservation by the Library of Congress.

This a sample of "Bleed Through" removed from the opposite side.  

Embossing of the stamp is not duplicated, it will be flat.

This passport was cleaned up to be published in a book. This client liked it looking like new.

This can be left looking aged and remove only the creases.

Submitted by Bill and Nadine Ford from the Antelope Valley Genealogy Society, CA.

If you are having difficulty reading a document there are two things you can try:

 If you have the ability to scan an image, you have the advantage of zooming in and you can turn it into a positive to  make out the writing. 

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