Dear Vicky and Scott,
  Do not dispair that your collections are worthless to anyone but
yourselves.  Having the correct name is the least important aspect of your
collection.  An 'expert' can always correct a wrong name, no one can
correct missing locality data.  I collect marine fossils, most of my
material still sits in boxes unidentified, however each specimen bag has a
slip included that tells when the material was collected, where it was
collected, who was on the trip, and if known the formation/member it was
collected from.  My logbook has a more detailed description of the site
including a small hand drawn map of how to get to the location, the
significant physical features of the topography (rivers, creeks,
buildings, ravines, etc.) of the site collected or a reference to a
published work where I found out about the site, and the coordinates of
longitude and latitude.  Thus ever if I misidentify the specimen, someone
can always correct my mistake however, they will never have a doubt where
it came from.  I used to put this info on the slip of paper in an
abbreviated form.  I stopped this practice after I tried to figure out
such codes on a collection that was donated to the Carnegie Museum.  It
was a nightmare.  With my computer I can print out dozens of site labels
with good descriptions and drop them into the specimen bags as needed.
  I would start adding locaity data to all your future shells.  If you
know that all the shells in the past came from say "pirates Beach" near
Runout Island in Carbon County from the early 1990's I would add that data
now.  If you collected from say several sites in Florida but cannot say
where the shells came from except the Gulf Coast side, I would include a
generic label saying west coast of Florida, early 1990's.
  Whatever you do, start collecting data from this day forward.
 
Charlie
***************************************************************************
 
Charlie Sturm, Jr
Clinical Instructor - Family Medicine
  University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine
Research Associate - Section of Invertebrate Zoology
  Carnegie Museum of Natural History
 
[log in to unmask]