Start a Legacy Journal.
A legacy book is kind of a cross between a scrapbook, a journal, and a genealogy book. You can purchase a readymade book with fill-in-the-blank pages and prompts to get you started. Or, you can look online for inspiration and create your own unique book, it is entirely up to you. You can even include your responses to this challenge in your book. It doesn’t even have to be a book, it can be completely digital. But you do run the risk of technology changes in the future. Anyone remember floppy discs? Personally, I would recommend printing out hard copies of any digital pages you create. You could even make multiple copies for other family members to share.
I am the family history keeper in my family. I became interested in researching my family history after I was already an adult. When I started, everything was done on paper charts and they were just starting to come up with ways to computerize the family tree information. The Family Tree Maker program was pretty new and was very expensive at the time. Websites like Ancestry.com have been around since the mid 1980s, but it was not as powerful then as it is now, and they require a subscription to access their online records.
Both of my parents had died before I turned 10 and we weren’t close to very many of our extended family, so I basically new my Dad, my Mom, two Aunts and Uncles, five cousins, and my paternal Grandmother. I began my genealogical journey knowing very little about my family.
It would have been amazing to have a book passed down with all the information I was searching for about my family already in it! I’m not talking about those dry books you find in libraries filled with names and dates only, but a book filled with interesting tidbits, traditions, and anecdotes, as well as the genealogical facts. That’s what I want to leave my descendants.
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