A Brief Pause…for an Important Message

My wife lost her brother this week.

As the death of a loved one often does, his passing caused me to reflect–about family history, my contribution to friends and family, and what really matters.  Her brother was the kind of person this company is named after, an everyday hero.  He was not famous, well known, rich, or CEO of his own company, but as evidenced by the multitude of comments from the people whose life he effected, he was a hero.  He worked every day for someone else, then spent his evenings and weekends investing in others.

As I thought about memorializing him in our family’s tree, it occurred to me that he probably was a blank in my family tree.  Sure enough, I accessed his profile, and there was nothing.  No sources, no facts, no information at all about who he was.  There is only one person in my family tree who is more nondescript than he was, and that profile belongs to me.

Two hundred years from now, there will be a Family Historian among my descendants.  Do I really want them to spend countless hours trying to find out who I am?  Do I really want them to have to sort out fact from fiction, to separate fantasy from reality?  Why not give them that information now.  I am the best source they will ever have, an eyewitness to the details of my life, and the lives of the ones I love, and have loved.

My mind knows that I need to do this.  I have read articles and heard webinars on filling in the details of the living members of  your family tree.  I have learned about preserving family artifacts and heirlooms, archiving photographs, recording oral histories; but this week my heart got a wake up call!

Each one of us is living our history right now.  Each one of us has a story to tell, a story that our descendants will one day want to know.  How easy would it be for us to record those stories now so they will not have to search for them later.

Today my focus on Family History is changing.  Previously, it has been focused 100 percent on learning the details of ancestors I never knew, and trying to piece together the details of their lives.  Now, it will include recording the stories of the family that I know and have known, to bring life to those empty profiles on my family tree, starting with my brother in law.

Won’t you join me?

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