Very old dough bowls

[Keith]

These 2 wooden dough bowls belong to my wife's family.They are both 26 1/2'' long,the wide one is 18 1/2'' wide.The one on the right belong to her Great Great Grandmother.The one on the left,belong to her Great Aunts,Grandmother,and was used by her Aunt when making biscuits,up till about 10 years ago.They are both in pretty bad shape,but i hope to pass them down to my children.

[regularjoe2]

Nice rustic old bowls , Keith !

Looks like they've been used well , and like you imply , perhaps it's time to retire them from their former use .
Having bits of family history around is a cool thing , I think , and passing them along to the kids is too ... as long as they survive the wooden-warrior-helmet stage of the heirs ....

If they were here , I'd give them a couple of good coats of mineral oil & a good wipe-down between/after coats .
Vegetable oil goes rancid & will feed bacteria : mineral oil won't ( ask any "real wood" cabinetmaker/union carpenter ) , so if these will be used only for display .. choose wisely .

In the event you'll be using these bowls & cleaning them regularly , Veg oil is O.K. & a better choice .

[talesofthesevenseas]

How wonderful that your children will be able to put their hands where the hands of their ancestors were! I love them! It is so great when something so simple, but so full of meaning is handed down from person to person. What a treasure!

[cogar]

Keith, great pieces and a treasure worth keeping. And I wil be daring and suggest that you give them a coating of vegetable oil to protect them from drying out and cracking. Under normal use they were always being washed and cleaned and thus their moisture content was preserved.

[KC]

I am with cogar on this one.  Use vegetable oil like would have been used in the past (melted shortening but don't do real lard).

Why retire them?  Some things actually last longer if they are used and start to deteriorate once they aren't.  The moisture that the bowls retained from regular use is what has helped preserve them up to this point.

You could make this a family tradition of making bisquits/bread/rolls at least on major holidays.  HOW NEAT WOULD THAT BE!!!  Then you could teach use/care of special items in the family and tell the story of the family!    OOOOOOHHHHHHH...... wish our family had bread bowls like this! 

We inherited family china from great great grandparents on both sides...and all we get to tell is that you would get spanked if you touched them - from the memories of our grandparents and parents!    And that they were used for special guest and major holidays.  That is why we decided in our family we use the china from our wedding on a weekly basis and show our family that "they" are our most special guests!

[Keith]

Thanks guys,I would have never thought,that a wooden bowl would have had so much meaning to so many families.They really are special to my family,but not knowing,I would have thought most would have considered them to be junk.

My son was with me when i found one of them in an old smokehouse.When he saw it he did not have a clue as to what it was used for,but he asked if we could keep it.I told him what it was used for and it was not going anywhere.When we found out who it belong to,and found out some of the history,he really got excited.After he seen that we had 2 of them,he asked if someday he and his sister could each have one.I never had thought of putting the oil on them,but that's what I'm going to do(Thanks cogar).The one that we found in the smokehouse,still has a few bugs.I am hoping the oil will stop their damage.

This is off the subject,but I am looking to start a search on our family history.Could someone tell me where would be the best place to begin.I know there are several sites that charge a fee,but i don't know where to start,and with money being tight right now,is there any free sites,even though they may have limited info.I just need a little help.

Thanks,God bless,Keith

[Kaytbell]

In answer to your genealogy question, you can go to this website for free genealogy research:  http://www.familysearch.org  The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Mormons) is probably best known for their genealogy records and free access.  In fact, I just found out they allow access to all their genealogy files for people searching for their immigrant relatives who came through Ellis Island, (New York).  You can even look at the official ship manifest and signatures of people who came to the US.  Anyway, hope this helps! 

[talesofthesevenseas]

Ancestry.com is fantastic. You can go a long way without having to subscribe, and when you do, you can go a whole lot further. One way to do it is to start out doing their free trial, then when you need their extended features you just pay for it for a month, then cancel at the end. It's OK to do that and you don't have to commit to it long-term.

I would highly recommend posting on the community forums with your ancestor's surname and geographic location. You'll find there are probably cousins of yours there that can help you get started and are willing to share information.

Another good site is findagrave.com and raogk.com (Random Acts Of Genealogical Kindness where you can ask someone in a geographic region to photograph a grave for you or look something up, then you offer to do the same for others.)

At first I was very hesitant to pay for a genealogy site, but then I began to realize that what funding does in enables them to purchase databases and to expand the site's capabilities. It is constantly growing and I have felt very good about supporting the site because it has been amazing how much more I can do now and how much further I have gone, than when I started doing genealogy in the 1980's.

Other good sites are Rootsweb, and footnote.com

One note about the LDS records. Many of their records are family supplied, "granny notes" and are not backed-up by actual source records, so LDS records need to be checked against an actual source like census records, military records etc. Also if you are researching military ancestors, many of the records we used to have to pay for can be found on footnote.com for about $11.

[cogar]

Keith, those old primitive wood bowls are highly collectible items and are probably worth more that what you think.

Here, click this url and you will see what a difference the oil makes. And they have that one priced, also.

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.antiquepeek.com/images/WoodenWares/Antique_farm_house_wood_bowl7.JPG&imgrefurl=http://www.antiquepeek.com/wood_bowl.htm&usg=__gHy3GH__G3pRwXyVd5Quet5gsLg=&h=263&w=350&sz=14&hl=en&start=12&tbnid=wJ1IDsf2hpjI_M:&tbnh=90&tbnw=120&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dprimitive%2Bwood%2Bbowls%26gbv%3D2%26hl%3Den