DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHS vs PORTRAIT STUDIOS
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| Part of my collection of Ambrotypes & Daguerreotypes |
We use our cell phones or our iPads to take quick unposed photos of moments - the birth of a child, a wedding, a vacation, a graduation. But do we print those pictures or do they stay in digital format? If we don't print and preserve them in some way, what picture memories will our descendants find?
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| Letter from Levi Peer 1848 |
Think of our excitement when we find a letter written by an ancestor to a loved one. In my own research I stumbled on several letters written by my 2nd great grandfather to his mother in the early 1800s. I was also lucky enough to have a letter written by an ancestor in the mid 1600s turn up in letters rescued from ships, then translated and put online. But here's the question - how many hand written letters have you sent to family or friends in the past year? I've sent none. In fact I can go back many years and say I've sent no letters that could be preserved, tucked away in an attic or a closet and discovered by a descendant in the future.
SOME ADVANTAGES
Yes our descendants will have many advantages in genealogy that we don't have. Right now we're seeing records being digitized and made available to the public at a record pace. But imagine how much will be at our descendants' fingertips 100 years from now, even 25 years from now. But the loss will almost certainly be in getting a sense of who the ancestor was, who WE were as individuals who cry, mourn, love and feel joy. Letters, diaries, and photos put a layer on an individual that can't be known any other way.
MY GOAL
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| Photo Book created about my Fuller ancestors |
Because overall I feel sad that most of us will leave very few candid or posed photographs, and very few hand-written letters, I began a personal project to create and publish photo books for my children and grand-children. It is my hope that some will survive and be passed on down through the generations.
Every year I also write and publish privately to share with my children, my memories of childhood, of my parents and grandparents. I also published a small guide with ideas on writing your memoirs and sharing your memories with family.
Sharing Family Stories and Memories: Prompts for Writing Your Memoirs for Future Generations Available as an ebook on Amazon.com, paperback on Amazon.com, ebook on Amazon.ca or paperback on Amazon.ca
Are you doing anything to make sure your descendants will have some special items in the future? It's never too late to start.
4 comments:
Just wondering who you are using to publish your books? I am putting some together for my grandchildren on Shutterfly.
I use Shutterfly if the books are only for my family. But the books that I sell are done through the KDP publishing program (Amazon owned)
I've recently started uploading my family stories to internet archive. It's not a perfect solution but it's more than I had before. I'm still stumbling around there trying to figure out how to group them together. But they're there and a search finds them so I'm winning.
The lost art of letter writing and taking physical photographs, not to mention a physical census and other such things are soon going to be making a comeback big time. That’s because within as little as 10 to, if we’re lucky, about 40 years our digital world will likely be gone. We’re running out of a lot of resources such as oil, chromium, selenium and tungsten. For example the International Energy Agency and Wood Mackenzie are among many warning of permanent and increasing oil shortages beginning within the next five years. Our technology is not designed to be recycled. Climate change is severely impacting the weather and increasing the numbers and strength of severe weather events, such as hurricanes and flooding. Our technology is increasingly complex. Do we really electronic watches?
Bottom line is that anything you want to keep you must have a physical copy of it otherwise you will likely lose it. So that well-documented family tree you have online you need to keep a physical copy of it. That photograph of your great great grandmother or grandfather that someone sent you needs to be printed.
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