In the last column (“Don’t agonize, organize,” Dec. 3, 2021), I discussed organizing your paper and digital information that you’ve been collecting to document your family history. Hopefully, you’re scanning in your photos, documents, notes and other material and storing those digital files on your computer, and backing them up on an external drive and in the cloud.
As I watched the horrific Marshall Fire spread just five miles from me, I couldn’t help but think not only of the human suffering, but also those irreplaceable pieces of family history gone in moments.
It was an awful reminder of how important it is to preserve this material digitally. If it’s in the cloud (or on another external drive at a family member in another city or state), it’s far more likely to survive disasters and time.
Depending on your piles of documents, photos and other items, this process may take time. If it seems overwhelming, it’s best to schedule a day a week to work on it, so it’s more doable.
This leads to the bigger question of how to pass on all the hard work that you may have been working on for years or even decades. There are many tales in the genealogy world of decades of work ending up in the dumpster by surviving family, because there was no plan to hand it down.
It’s a great 2022 resolution to make plans now for your work to outlast you.
A first step is identifying who will inherit your collection. You might be lucky enough to have an enthusiastic child (or grandchild) who has been working with you along to pass the torch to — but most of us aren’t that lucky. Instead, you might need to turn to a sibling, niece or nephew or cousin to receive your work.
Truthfully, they likely are not as enthusiastic as we are. Most of us are the family historian because no one else has the passion to bring our ancestors back to living memory. So, it may take some persuasion. Ideally, we are convincing at least one family member to take a moderate interest in family history. And hopefully you will be working with them on a consistent basis to keep them interested.
However, you might have to settle for someone who reluctantly will accept your work, rather than see it end up in the landfill (or recycling facility). If that’s the case, see them as a placeholder — someone who will hold onto your work until someone else in the family becomes more interested.
It’s a good idea to put whatever your plan is, into your will. Be explicit as to your wishes, namely that the collection is not discarded and will be passed down. If you had enough foresight to either build family trees on genealogy software, or put it online, make sure you include your username and password.
If you aren’t able to find anyone (it happens), consider donating your collection to an archive or repository. There are a limited number of places that will accept your personal genealogy. Consider the local library or county archive where your ancestors lived — they sometimes accept donations.
One online site that will accept your work is FamilySearch.org (click on Genealogies in their menu.) While they are well known for their billions of free records and their family tree, many don’t know they have many thousands of genealogies they’ve collected for decades. You can both search their genealogies and donate yours. They will accept anyone’s family history, but it needs to be in the form of a GEDCOM, which is a computer file for- mat from online trees or genealogy software.
You could also consider the Allen County Public Library in Fort Wayne, Ind., one of the top genealogy libraries in the US. They accept print and digital material: acpl.lib.in.us/donations.
One of the best genealogy web- sites overall, as mentioned in a previous column, is Cyndi’s List — and she has a category, Personal Research, where you can include your family history.
Keep in mind that the more unorganized and paper-based your work is, the more likely it will be thrown out. So, the most important tasks you can do no, is to scan and digitize your work, and if you haven’t already, put your family trees online.
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