Why does this joke make us laugh? Aren’t we like the disbelieving lady clerk, smirking at the poor fellow’s lack of knowledge?
At a recent EWGS Fall Seminar, I chatted with many of our marvelous members. Many of these members would classify themselves as “no longer spring chickens.” (Me among them!) But I was dismayed and saddened to chat with more than one senior genealogist who was struggling with “what SHALL I do with all the genealogy stuff I’ve collected??”
As a group, they offered the usual excuses: Don’t know what to do, don’t know where to start, don’t have time, don’t have interested family, not computer literate, “it’s just too overwhelming.”
I did understand. I was sympathetic. I did offer my one-on-one help. Hopefully some will take me up on that offer.
But bottom line:
- YOU collected the stuff
- YOU must so something with all of the stuff
- Yes, it is terribly sorry that you didn’t do this earlier…
- Do you really want all the stuff of your years’ work to go to recycling?
- Chances are near 90% sure that if YOU don’t do something with all that stuff, nobody else will.
- No, your gene society doesn’t want it; the FamilySearch Library doesn’t want it; and your grandchildren surely DO NOT want boxes and binders of papers!!
- And it’s patently unfair of YOU to expect that they will.
- YOU collected the stuff.
Does this sad scenario have to be inevitable for you?? Don’t you want to leave a legacy and not a mess? There is an answer, I promise. Here’s how:
- DECIDE to DO something
- MAKE TIME to DO something
- MAKE IT A PRIORITY
- Ask for help………. your friends, EWGS folks
- Ask me! I’ll happily come to you to help you get organized and started…
Started on what, do you ask? Getting all your information from those boxes and binders of paper into a computer database. THERE IS NO OTHER WAY. Believe me, that is the only way to leave your computer-oriented posterity a legacy. Think about it.
((** I posted this to my society, Eastern Washington Gen Soc, while I can come help one-on-one. Obviously you likely live too far away for me to personally come help. BUT I’m 100% sure there are your friends in your gene society who would come to help you. Just ask.)
Donna, your bottom line bullet point items are indicative that the person has a passion to get to know the family history. And yes, where do you start? I started with Find A Grave and built the family links there. Much cheaper than Ancestry.com, but I did use Family Tree Maker to help keep organized. Because of the volume of information, I decided to not place it all in FTM as you can do, but I kept it all in a separate document where I could easily scan and insert pictures etc. This way I could be messy to begin with and cut and paste later on. Gradually go through the boxes, and do not combine them as later on that may provide confusing information. In other words find a way that works for you in whatever organization process works for you and then just keep putt it all together until you are satisfied. Put your finished document in a PDF file and on a thumb drive and label it. I still have all the boxes and books and left over tin type photos, I could never identify, and now my next project is to actually throw away all the loose papers and census information and other loose stuff, but I am still going to have antique photos, certificates, and other stuff that even though I have it all scanned and in a document and on a thumb drive, there is still going to be stuff I just cannot get rid of, and you are right, no one else in the family is even interested. But maybe someday one of the grandkids will be. That is my hope anyway.