Making a Genealogy Time Capsule Part 3

Once you have your Genealogy Time Capsule made, you're ready to take the final step. You can hide it inside a building or outside.

You can hide it in the rafters of an attic, or above the pipes or duct-work in a basement. Behind the insulation works well too. If you happen to be renovating, hide it in the walls!

You can bury it - choose a prominent landmark (a tree, a boulder, etc) if you want to remember where it is.

Choose the driest spot you can find. For example on top of a hill is better than in a low lying area or a ditch.

A good location is under your deck or porch, as it is dry and near a house.

If you have a walkway or patio you could lift one of the stones and bury it underneath.

Remember, you are wrapping your time capsule in many many layers of plastic if it's being buried outside so don't worry about someone in the future mistaking it for junk! I'm quite sure their curiosity would compell them to unwrap it.

You can make this very ceremonial by including your children or grandchildren. Have them plant a tree on top of the spot you have chosen. Impress on them that they are to show or tell their children where it is. In turn those children are to tell the next generation and so on until the date you have chosen for it to be dug up and opened.

I was in Guelph this weekend for my parents' Memorial Service. My two oldest grandchilden (age 11 and 9) were there so I told them about the Genealogy Time Capsule. They were intrigued and enthused, and looking forward to making one on their annual week-long stay at our home this summer. We have decided to establish a date - perhaps July 1st which is Canada Day, and a year, when the Genealogy Time Capsule is to be opened. We left them discussing whether they want to open the Genealogy Time Capsule 50 years from now in their lifetime, or 250 years from now!

Making a Genealogy Time Capsule Part 2

We have talked previously about what items to put into a Genealogy Time Capsule. Now it's time to think about what kind of container we will use.

The first thing is to decide if you are going to hide your Genealogy Time Capsule inside a building or outside. If inside, the container does not have to be waterproof. If outside, you must waterproof it as best you can.

We thought of using the following easy-to-find containers:


1. Metal Cookie Tin
2. Plastic storage box
3. Old tackle or tool box (we found an old army ammo box which was perfect!)
4. a sturdy box that an appliance came in
5. large dog biscuit container with lid

Any of the above are fine to simply hide somewhere in your house or other building (we'll talk about locations for your Genealogy Time Capsule in a separate post)

If you are going to hide your Capsule outside you can use the Metal Cookie Tin, or plastic boxes but not a cardboard one. The metal tins or plastic tubs are not waterproof where they close so you must waterproof the closures. You can do this by caulking the edges. You can also wrap the entire container in plastic bags and seal tightly with clear packing tape.

To be extra cautious, you can tuck your items into ziplock plastic baggies before placing them in the containers.

You can also use plastic PVC piping and end caps. These can be purchased at any hardware or plumbing store. Simply cut the PVC piping to the lengths you want, add your genealogy items and seal the end caps with plumber's adhesive.

If you are involving children or grandchildren in this project (as we plan to do) why not give each of them their own smaller container. They can fill it with items they choose, with letters and drawings they have created, with toys, and so on. Then you can seal their smaller container and place it inside the larger Genealogy Time Capsule. We thought a large plastic Cottage Cheese container or Wet Ones Container would work well for our grandchildren.

Making a Genealogy Time Capsule

When my husband and I were building our home in the country 12 years ago, we filled a 1-Litre plastic pop bottle with odds and ends of items for a make-shift Time Capsule. We dropped in coins, a note explaining who we were, and other small items that we thought would be fun for someone to find whenever our house is torn down. We sealed the bottle and dropped it between the walls of the basement.

Now our idea is to create a Genealogy Time Capsule to be found and opened in 100, 200 or even more years from now. So let me share with you our ideas for what we could put in our Genealogy Time Capsule.

1. Our Family Trees. Print a chart or create your own on a pre-printed blank tree.
2. Photographs of us, our family and other loved ones - all labelled on the reverse
3. Dated and signed letters that we write to whoever finds the Time Capsule
4. Newspaper Clippings - news, obituaries, anything of interest genealogically speaking
5. Copies of documents such as birth certificates, marriage records, family bible pages

We also plan to add such items as digital cameras (a non working one of course!), an old pair of glasses, an old watch, a couple of old keys - anything that we ourselves would love to find that belonged to someone 100 years ago. Think how much fun it would be to find a pair of glasses that your great great grandmother wore... Think in terms of artifacts that you'd like to find. What you use today will be an artifact in the future!

Burn a CD ROM with photos or other genealogical information. How about including a video? Sure it might not be able to be read in the future but then again, some information might be gleaned from it and a CD doesn't cost very much to include

Put in something you made - a doily that you crocheted, a scarf you knit, a needlepoint (does anyone do these anymore?), a picture you drew, a tiny figurine you carved from wood or soapstone. How about a favourite recipe? That would give future generations an idea of the kinds of food their ancestor made and ate. Even better if it's an old family recipe.

A child's toy, doll or stuffed animal would be nice to include, especially if you involve your children or grand-children in the project. Let them choose an item or two that says something about them. Perhaps they can write or print a little note to go with the item. Date it, put their name and draw a picture of themselves playing with it. Or take a photo of them playing with the toy.

You can add anything you want but our plan was to keep it as genealogy-related as possible. I'm definitely putting in coins from this year. What fun it would be to find coins that someone had put in a Genealogy Time Capsule 100 years ago!

Put all your items in ziplock plastic bags to help protect from water. Go crazy, let your imagination run wild. Involve your entire family and make this a way and time to spend some quality time together, quality time that involves genealogy.

My next post will give you our ideas and tips on containers you might want to use for your Genealogy Time Capsule. We have several different suggestions so stay tuned! We also have quite a few ideas for the location of your Genealogy Time Capsule so again if this is a project that sparks your interest, keep watching for that post on this blog.