Helping to Preserve Family Memories

Here is a quote I recently received from Paul Nauta at FamilySearch quoting Tim Cross.

"More than half the world is not wealthy enough to be connected to the internet. More than half the world is not wealthy enough to be remembered. They pass away, and there is nothing recorded about them, their families, and their ancestors. That’s the challenge—getting out and giving the opportunity to be remembered," Tim Cross, Family Tree Lite Product Manager, FamilySearch International.

Here is another quote from the FamilySearch blog post by Angelyn Hutchinson entitled, "Does Your Family Keep a Memory Scrapbook?"

I heard my father’s voice the other day. 

I cried. 

The last time I heard it was in 2008. It was fall when Dad died. I miss him every day. His voice sat on my shelf for almost nine years, captured on an old VHS tape that was recently discovered. 

In 1990, my father set up his camcorder and videotaped his uncle Herman, the last of my great-grandparents’ seven children. Using old photos, Herman, seated beneath the cottonwood trees in his yard on a summer day, told the story of his parents emigrating in 1901 from Sweden to Cache Valley in northern Utah. He described their lives and struggles and those of other ancestors who were gone but not forgotten to him. The details and stories that I’d never heard unfolded before me nearly three decades later as I watched the video now in my possession, and Herman’s memories became mine.

My wife and I have spent much of our lives gathering, recording and preserving our families' heritage. My wife has been spending a great deal of time recently reviewing and organizing a huge pile of boxes in our basement containing the records of her family. I have been paying one of my granddaughters to put photos and documents onto the FamilySearch.org Memories program. She is leaving shortly on a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and she needed a short-term job before she leaves. Here is a screenshot of some of her efforts up to the time of this post.

She is working through some of the thousands of digitized photos and documents I have ready to be uploaded, titled and tagged.

Interestingly, very few of our close family members are likely aware or even care about our preservation efforts. My wife's family is much more involved than mine. I have almost no contact with my own family members even though I see that many others have added a substantial number of memories to my distant relatives. Sometimes, out preservation efforts seem to go unnoticed and unappreciated. But we are not looking either for notice or appreciation. We want these people to be remembered so that sometime someone will be touched by their stories.

If you or your family have not become involved in preserving family memories, please read about all the opportunities outlined in the Angelyn Hutchinson's post linked here and above.