What? STOP adding names to my family tree?
I thought that was the point of genealogy work, isn’t it? Aren’t we all trying to find out if we have descended from a European King or have some link to royalty somewhere? Why should I STOP?
When I was in my 20’s, pre-kids, living in Boulder, Colorado where the University had a right respectable “genealogy” section, I decided to join the Boulder Genealogical Society.
Yep, they were all quite a bit older than me. But I had been hanging out with my husband’s grandmother who shared some fun, intriguing stories about her life and that of her late husband – plus some ‘black sheep’ in the family ancestors going back to some Pinkerton detective stories. I loved it when I found some newspaper clippings (in a book at the Boulder library) verifying some of what the family had whispered about. I was hooked!
OK, along came family, moves, my own law school education and a very time-consuming career. So the family history stuff was on a shelf. Except, thankfully, I was moved to record (on a cassette tape) my own grandfather as he was in his 80’s – captured his birth story in Indian Territory and have his voice sharing all about living in a one-room half dugout, half soddy home in what is now Oklahoma. A treasure.
But life jumped into high gear and it got buried with the other family info I had started gathering. Then my grandparents left their treasures with my parents (in a few boxes). As my parents left this earth, the collection of boxes along with their added treasures got passed primarily to me.
Not long ago I blogged about becoming the Family Historian, By Choice (that’s you genealogist types out there) or By Chance (you who are in my position of receiving the family “stuff”).
So here I am – oldest generation in the family – and I am feeling the need to get that “family history” stuff in shape for passing along to the next generations. And yes, I know my kids (as I have heard from so many other photobook makers like me) do NOT want lots of big bulky physical albums or boxes of papers. It is the most common complaint I hear from my traditional scrapbooking friends. My kids don’t want my (fill in the blank) scrapbooks, photobooks, family photos, boxes of genealogy papers – my family stuff.
In fact, a friend just shared a very sad story of a family she knew – when the parents died and the scrapbooks/boxes of genealogy papers, photos etc. were passed to the son, he dumped them all in the trash. And I know he is not the only one who has handled the family “stuff” that way. It breaks my heart.
But it also motivates me to complete my legacy plan for the family history items in my care. I had to put it in place quickly, it needed to be simple, and for sure, it must be easy to maintain. Thankfully, I had gotten on board a few years ago with the company who had all the tools I needed.
The most unique tool (which was essential for me) was the long-term storage which kept the formats of my stuff changed as technology changed – plus they would manage my “stuff” even if no one in my next generation was interested in doing so. On top of that, their digitization and organization tools are top notch. The BIG piece was that everything in the storage tool was easily accessible to me and viewable by any friends or family with whom I chose to share.
So I set to work making my system of using their tools with my family history “stuff” the simple one that I knew I could build and maintain in 15-minute a day style or even a few dedicated days each month. Whatever fit into my life events.
And now I am ready to share the simplified system I have discovered with others in my position – as well as with the true genealogists out there. It fits for all. Plus, I want to pull together a community of “Life Savers” who are motivated as I am to preserve the family legacies that have been entrusted to me. Not to mention adding my own memories and photos into the appropriate places.
I know that when I talk about the stories of their great-grandfather who fought in WWI in the trenches in France, my kids are intrigued and want to know more. So do I! And they learn their grandfathers fought in WWII as pilots convoying the essential men and supplies that were the lifeline to those on the battlefield – one grandfather flew the Hump (the nickname given the airlift operation that crossed the Himalayan foothills into China – the Army Air Force’s most dangerous airlift route, but the only way to supply forces fighting Japan).
Add on a great uncle who flew a jet in the Korean conflict (what is that, they ask). He had to bail out of his jet after taking out a machine gun nest in North Korea – and he survived, living to his 80’s so he could share that story first-hand with me (backed up by photos).
A few years ago, I joined the Castle Rock genealogical society (I highly recommend them – www.crcgs.org) and even took some classes to learn how to research and organize as well as cite sources and curate the documents I found. That, too, could be overwhelming if I am trying to research and document those many generations of names on the family charts.
There you have it! That is why I am saying STOP spending your limited time on names added to the top of your pedigree chart.
I kept struggling with that overwhelm which washed over me every time I thought about how much I needed to research and fill out those charts even more. And how hard it was to research in the 1700’s and further back.
I pulled out the big scrapbook type (8.5 x 14 size pages) heavy genealogy charts book that came down my father’s side of the family. Someone (not sure who) had handwritten many, many pages of family tree charts filling in names, dates and some location information. Family pages named the children in a household – again, names and dates.
While interesting, it was just showing names – and yes, they went back to the 1600’s in New England. But there is absolutely no indication of the supporting records or documents which produced the information written into the charts. My genealogy classes taught me that if I was going to trust the information, I needed to get the evidence supporting the names, dates and places.
Overwhelm set in again. How could I ever?
OK – I went to the other side of the family, my mom’s. I had inherited a similarly completed family tree chart on an extra large sheet of paper. Plus my grandmother handwrote some additional info on the back – great! I have her handwriting – which was beautiful.
But the same problem showed up – these are names, dates, locations but no documentation. No evidence to support the information showing there.
Oh, yeah, I had collected some census records and some birth/death certificates, and there were some obituaries from the boxes handed down to me. Pieces and parts – all over the place. Ollie Overwhelm came to visit me again!
I had to come to a decision about what my goal and plan was going to be with regard to my Family Historian position. I wanted:
- To bring to life the people named on the family tree above me starting with parents, grandparents, great-grandparents adding my stories and remembrances
- To preserve for future generations the legacy materials I had received without depending on my kids or others to sort or store things
- To be able to easily add the items that show up in my research as I continue at my pace
- To spend my research time on filling out the timelines, social history, stories and factual parts of those people – and if there is time, go to the next generation above them and do the same
- To do my own Life Story so future generations don’t have to do the genealogy research on me
And that’s when the big goal took shape for me. I wanted to pull together the items I had on those generations just above me weaving together their individual enriched life stories using not only the factual documentation and photos but also the family stories and social history. By following a time line that gave cohesion to their life stories, adding what I could piece together along with social history – I wanted to bring them to life for me and for future generations.
Most important – those legacy materials providing rich life stories need to be easily viewed not only by me but by other family members in a place that preserves them for many generations to come.
Ok, that is a vision that makes me excited and my discovery of the perfect tools for accomplishing this goal gives me a great sigh of relief.
It’s time to pass it along to others – so keep an eye out for my “Family History Boot Camp” – coming soon as a one-day workalong style live event. It is the FIRST big step that will set you up for success in enriching and preserving your family “stuff”. And yes, I have plans for building a community effort that will continue to keep us all on track after Boot Camp! Stay tuned! (and let me know if you have any special requests or questions that need to be addressed).
