What do you want a genealogist to find about you and your family? Whether or not you’re a genealogist yourself, odds are that somebody else in your family is interested in researching the history of your ancestors and descendants. Some (ABC News) estimate that genealogy is 2nd only to gardening as America’s favorite pastime. If somebody isn’t already researching your family history, who’s to say that someone in the next couple of generations won’t study their history? When they inevitably come looking, what do you want that genealogist to find about your family?
Genealogy, more technically defined as “the study of family ancestral lines,” is here to stay. Genealogists typically use oral interviews (Kindred), historical records, genetic analysis (23andMe + Ancestry.com), and other records to build family trees and a body of research around each member. Genealogists work both from the present to the past (researching ancestors), and from the past to the present (researching descendants).
When looking for information before the digital age, genealogists need to rely on information from newspapers, photos, letters, charts, and government records to connect the dots. Gathering that information is both a painstaking and time consuming process.
Although some may argue that we’re nearing the end of the “Digital Era,” the same Harvard Business Review writer also argues that digital technology is not going away any time soon. Therefore, we need to bring genealogy into the digital age. Instead of relying on newspapers and letters, why don’t we record every member of our family discussing their life stories, family, and ancestors? Oral history legacy videos are a phenomenal way to document and preserve family history. There are services like Kindred that make creating a family legacy video quick and affordable; so why don’t we give our current family members a gift they’ll love and leave our descendants a gift they’ll truly appreciate? When your great-great-great grandchildren come searching for information about their ancestors, why not tell them your life story yourself?
So we’ll ask it one more time, when your descendants come looking for information about their genealogy - what do you want them to find?