What do our possessions say about us? More specifically what do they say about our past, present and our future? Many families possess a "family archive"; documents, photographs, heirlooms, scrapbooks, recipes and a whole range of other items that "reveal insights" into past generations, and preserve family stories. They may never have thought of these assemblages as "archives", but by retaining and preserving possessions these items mold a sense of family identity either consciously or unconsciously. This article explores the initial findings of a series of focus groups conducted in the UK, which considers the "family archive" as an important and undervalued site of meaning and identity construction. The article also highlights the relationship between the "official" or publicly recognized heritage and "unofficial" or everyday/private heritage, locating the "family archive" across these domains. We argue for greater recognition and promotion of this "behind the scenes" heritage and for museums and archives to explore the potential opportunities that the engagement with the "family archive" offers for wider audience engagement. ARTICLE HISTORY

Using an interdisciplinary research methodology across three archaeological and historical case studies, this article explores “family archives.” Four themes illustrate how objects held in family archives, curation practices, and intergenerational narratives reinforce a family’s sense of itself: people–object interactions, gender, socialization and identity formation, and the “life course.” These themes provide a framework for professional archivists to assist communities and individuals working with their own family archives. We argue that the family archive, broadly defined, encourages a more egalitarian approach to history. We suggest a multiperiod analysis draws attention to historical forms of knowledge and meaning-making practices over time.

British archaeologists have long recognised the potential for the archaeology of working-class neighbourhoods to illuminate communities that typically left few direct traces of their own in the written record. They have also emphasised that the 'rich and diverse material culture' from such sites provides alternative perspectives to the textual evidence, which is often moralizing and condemnatory (Giles and Rees Jones 2011, 545-6). Drawing on a case-study from Sheffield (Yorkshire), this paper explores what material culture can reveal about working-class childhoods. It argues that childhood was depicted and experienced at the intersections of the chapel, mine and pub, and that competing conceptions of childhood and family were pivotal to the struggle for working-class identity.

This chapter presents a few of the Researching Community Heritage (RCH) projects in more depth, introducing the activities of narrative, creative practice and engaged learning that were shared ways of working during the research. It reflects on how these activities engaged the participants with heritage as a creative and social process, rather than heritage as a body of immutable facts about the past. Through this attentiveness to process during the RCH project, the researchers became conscious of how researching was a means of enfranchising participants, and of revealing and contesting inequalities within and beyond the projects. The chapter then proposes an ‘action heritage’ framework for undertaking co-produced heritage research. RCH began with the seemingly straightforward aim of helping local community organisations find out more about their heritage. By the conclusion of RCH, the researchers were all aware of the radical repositioning of roles engendered by co-production.