In your desire to preserve and record the past of your family, do not forget to include materials on yourself. Newspaper clippings, photographs, awards, certificates, diplomas, and other items that relate to YOU are important as well. At some point in the future, you will be on of those names on a chart just like the relatives you are trying to track down today.
Future genealogists in your family will be glad that you did not forget to preserve items on the living as well as the dead.
[Thanks to Facebook fan Bella C. for suggesting today’s tip!]
5 Responses
I would expand this suggestion to include all of ones living relatives, your spouse and children if you have them, siblings, nieces, nephews etc. Your next family genealogist might not be born yet – give them a head start!
That’s a very good point!
Great idea! I have lots of certificates and awards from my job that my family has never seen.
I’ve been keeping all the birthday, graduation, wedding announcements I get from my nieces and nephews. I just put them back in the envelope and stash them in a folder with some of my family research. My mom has always saved funeral programs and obituaries for the vital statistics, but I save these just for fun. Fifty years from now someone might enjoy seeing all the Elsa, and Mario Brothers, and Minecraft and Pokemon birthday parties we had.
Oh, and I save the envelopes to have a record of where they lived at the time. I also try to remember to put a note on the back of the card with the year and the full name of the person and their relationship to me, just to clarify things for future family members.
There is a balance to walk between preserving the living and the dead. I’m fairly young and have lost all of my grandparents and parents. There is no one to ask anything of any more to understand their stories. I don’t want to wait until it’s too late to share my own stories.