Somewhere in many adoptive families there is a box: an adoption decree, agency paperwork, a tiny photograph stapled to an intake form, a plane ticket, a name tag, sometimes letters. That box is often the only physical record of how your family came to exist, and it is quietly deteriorating. Preserving it is a concrete, useful thing a descendant can do — often more welcome than questions, and frequently the thing that starts the conversation anyway.
First, permission. If the documents are your parent’s, the decision to scan, share, or even look at them is your parent’s. “Can I scan these so they are safe?” is itself a gentle way into the subject — most people say yes to preservation even when they are not ready to reminisce.
What counts: more than you think. The obvious papers — decrees, agency correspondence, medical intake forms — but also photographs of the flight or the airport, luggage tags, clothing, letters from foster mothers, cassette tapes, anything with a name or a date on it. Do not throw away envelopes; postmarks are dates.
Scanning, briefly: use 600 dpi for photographs and small documents, 300 dpi for ordinary paper. Save an untouched master (TIFF or PNG) plus an everyday JPEG copy. Scan both sides — the back of a Korean photograph often carries handwriting that matters more than the front. Do not crop, straighten, or “enhance” the master. Name files with what you know: 1985-holt-intake-front.tiff beats scan0031.tiff forever.
Storage, briefly: paper and photos live longest somewhere cool, dry, and dark — a bedroom closet, not an attic or basement. Acid-free folders and sleeves are cheap online. Never laminate anything, and never use tape; both are one-way doors. For the digital copies, follow the 3-2-1 rule: three copies, two different kinds of storage, one somewhere else (cloud storage counts).
The person who remembers is a primary source too.
Record the telling, not just the paper. A phone voice memo of your parent walking through the box — what is this, who gave it to you, what do you remember — will one day be worth more than the scans. You do not need equipment or interviewing skill. Ask small questions, let silences sit, stop when they want to stop. Twenty minutes is a triumph.
One more thing, given the history: the file may be wrong. Korea’s truth commission confirmed in 2025 that many adoption records contain fabricated details — orphan registrations for children who had parents, altered names and birthdates. If your family’s paperwork contradicts your family’s memories, preserve both and write down the discrepancy. An annotated wrong document is evidence; a discarded one is gone. And make copies for relatives — redundancy across households is how family archives actually survive.