Methods
Build an Institution Packet
This field note is part of the FOBA learning stream. It is meant to orient readers and point toward better source work.
Key points
- An institution packet keeps community infrastructure visible instead of reducing history to one person or one record.
- The packet can include church minutes, school reports, cemetery records, society notices, newspapers, land records, tax digests, photographs, oral history, and safe-sharing notes.
- It helps the site explain how a place worked: who gathered, who taught, who buried, who organized, who published, and who corrected memory.
Next steps
- Create one packet per institution, not one mixed folder for the whole town.
- Record source owner, access rules, dates, privacy risk, and exact claim supported.
- Ask permission before publishing private church, school, lodge, cemetery, or family-collection material.
Source trail
- FOBA Source Review – Internal source fields and claim-status workflow.