Curt Witcher, the manager of The Genealogy Center at the Allen County Public Library in Fort Wayne, Ind., was the plenary speaker at BYU's Conference on Family History and Genealogy on Wednesday. Michael DeGroote reported on his talk in the Mormon Times this morning. His article can be found at this link:http://bit.ly/cR0xvsFor all of my adult life, until the advent of social networking sites like Facebook, I’ve been a letter writer. I also have always loved receiving handwritten letters in the mail. In Curt’s talk, he asks the question, “When was the last time you received a letter from someone?” I know it’s been 2 or 3 years since I have. It’s been that long since I’ve written and mailed one too!
I started this blog in September, 2008 with the intent of sharing my genealogy research findings. Lately I’ve slacked off on my postings because I’ve been quite busy researching and enjoying the written gifts sent to me by other researchers with relevant material on my husband’s family. This brings me back to Curt’s point: in many cases, we know much of what we know about our family’s past because of the letters that were written by and to them. What I’ve enjoyed reading for the last two months are transcriptions of letters written to my husband’s great, great grandaunt by her grandchildren in the early 1900s. See the previous story abut that.
But my grandchildren are not writing letters to me these days. They’re posting their daily activities on Facebook instead.
After reading Curt’s observations, I’m going to change the focus of my writing from sharing with the geneablogging community to sharing with my posterity. I suppose the content will be the same, but my purpose will be changed. As I write and post photos, explanations, findings, etc. I’m going to do it with my grandchildren and great grandchildren in mind, rather than my contemporaries on Facebook! Right now my grandchildren are not interested in what I have to say or to share, but with wonderful tools like Blurb, I can write about my family history and print it all in book form for my descendants. I’m confident that SOMEBODY, SOMEDAY will find SOMETHING that I’ve written interesting and maybe even valuable.
6 comments:
Becky..this was exactly why I started blogging. I didn't even know there were geneabloggers out there when I started this year in February! I've been missing the whole blogging community until now! I found it only because I felt I needed a more interesting way to get my genealogy and our family history out there for family to read. I thought pictures with stories would help. They are still not reading it but I keep thinking someday they will. Probably after I'm gone. But I put right on my blog who my blog was for when I created it and that's pretty much what I have stuck to these months. And I have this sense of urgency...I have so much to post and who knows how much time any of us have to get our work out there?
Excellent idea, Becky. I started my blog with a modest purpose- getting in touch with other researchers. It has succeeded in doing that for me, but the contacts with other genea-bloggers has been a bonus and, like you, I want to put the articles on research and on my own memories together for my descendants.
This is a great idea. I think writing with your children and grandchildren in mind will interest many of bloggers and researchers, too.
Wonderful idea. I keep hoping that someday my kids will get the "genealogy" bug and want to read my research. If they ever do, I want to be prepared!
Fantastic idea! I keep hoping my family will become interested too. I can hardly wait to see what you come up with!
You've given me lots to think about, Becky. I've been having thoughts along these same lines. I started my blog to have a place for family to find stories I gathered and wrote about our ancestors and a lot of them do read them, but so many of the younger generation do not. My children and grandchildren barely give my work a passing nod! It's a little discouraging. Then there is always the nagging question in my mind of will my blog always be out there on the world-wide-web? I think I need to create a book or books that will be something tangible that my descendants can read and hold in their hands. I've learned a LOT from the world of the geneabloggers. Thanks, everyone.
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