“I don’t do heritage”
By Laura Lou Bashlor
“I don’t do heritage.”
I have heard this and read this several times recently. When I ask, “Why?” I get several answers.
QUOTE: “I don’t have any heritage photos. My (grandma, uncle, sister, dad) has them all and won’t let me have any.”
MY RESPONSE: I have friends who have taken their computer and a scanner right to their relative’s house and scanned family photos right in front of the reluctant family member who then retains the originals.
Heritage photos aren’t necessary. Some of my pages are just text, but I can still make them fit my style with backgrounds and elements. One set matches my ancestor’s milestone events as I have discovered them online, with dates in history. I can see that he married just days before joining the American Revolution. His first child with that wife was born almost an exact 9 months after the end of the war. Deaths of some of his many children coincided with epidemics in that area at that time.
I have no photos of these people, of course, but the matching time-lines make a fascinating pair of pages.
QUOTE: “I don’t have anyone to pass this stuff down to.”
MY RESPONSE: I can almost hear my mother’s mother, Laura, saying this. She died before I was born but I wish I could talk with her for just one hour. Her mother, Abagail, is a complete “brick wall”. I know her name and nothing else. She disappears before the first census I can find. No birth nor death certificate. I remember my mother talking about her grandfather Abram, but never mentioned that grandmother. I can almost hear my grandmother Laura saying that no one was interested in what she knew of her family. You, too, may have a great-grandson, or great-niece in the future who will thank you for what you have preserved.
QUOTE: “I don’t know much about my background.”
MY RESPONSE: I admit, I scrap heritage photos because I am fascinated with the family histories. One day I realized that I now know more about my grandmother’s family than she ever did. She left only four handwritten pages of stationery for my dad. I have since found that some of the information was incomplete and incorrect. I wish I could talk with her for an hour, but information is all over the Internet at wonderful free and pay sites. Most of the pay sites charge by the month so you can just join for a brief period to grab the information you need after you have exhausted the free sites. You may have nothing but a name to start with. but growing that family tree can start with a very small “seed”.
QUOTE: “No one else in my family cares.”
MY RESPONSE: Maybe not today, but look to the future! I am about to start a life book for myself, after seeing one a dear friend is making. She is discovering many things about herself as she traces her own life events for possible future descendants. It can be like a diary, or can incorporate photos from various periods of your life. Heritage doesn’t have to be that old…ancestors. You can make your own heritage. Don’t you wish you had such a book left to you by a beloved relative from another generation?
QUOTE: I don’t write very well.
MY RESPONSE: Does anyone really care? In these days of spell checker and grammar checking, you have some tools, but, believe me, how you write makes it your own. I adore the little misspellings in my grandmother’s few pieces of writing she left. It is so her! It is old fashioned and folksy, just like she was. Write in your own voice. Put in the slang or idioms you use in daily speaking. If you have to, to start, just tell a story to a photo with a recorder running. Then try writing exactly what you said. If you have help with this, get someone to video-tape you telling them about your birth, your wedding, or a birthday. Then write it out. You can even set up that video camera on a tripod and talk to yourself. Never be embarrassed about your writing.
OK. Give it a try. One photo…one page…one story at a time.
