Pull out the old photo albums at least once a year and go through them with your children.
I’m in the process of compiling a pictorial and family history book for my children. I have pictures of many of their ancestors and stories that my parents told me about them. There are also many stories about our Home Place, which they too came to love when they visited their grandparents.
If older people take a look at their picture collection, they’ll realize, like I did, that although I know who the people are and what relation they are to all of us, my children wouldn’t. I’m sorry to say that both me and my own parents were lax in writing dates and names on the back of the pictures that we took.
The ability to trace family history is becoming more and more difficult in these modern times. But the little family anecdotes and things that happen both happy and sad in the lives and childhoods of older family members are a priceless thing to leave to your children and grandchildren. I listened carefully to the tales my own Father told me about living through the Great Depression, life in the Navy during WWII, and how very different that time was from the prosperous times afterward that I was fortunate enough to live in as a child. I can pass those on to my own children. If I don’t, then they’ll all go with me to my grave. That’s a sad thing to happen in my opinion. Family values, histories and connections are some of the things that have made this nation great.
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Family histories are very important. I remember my great-grandfather who was eight years old when Custer was at the Little Big Horn. My great-grandfather lived to see the B-52 bomber go into service. His daughter was my grandmother who died in 1916. The rest was a blank. No history at all.
My dad never talked about his family and we had no history of them except a last name. I was at a family reunion of my grandmother’s family when one of them gave me a name for my father’s family history.
Come to find out, at sixty years old, we DID have a past clear back to the Civil War days when our kin served in the Alabama Cavalry.
Alas, all we now have is names and dates. Nothing about what they did in those days.
It’s amazing how little we talk with our parents and grandparents.
I knew my father got a field promotion from Ensign to Lt. Commander and became the ship’s executive officer during WW2. And I also knew the Navy just doesn’t hand out promotions haphazardly. I never knew how this happened until about a year ago, when I spoke to someone else from his ship purely by chance. An shell from the Japanese heavy cruiser Chikuma hit the bridge of his ship killing most of the officers on his ship and he wound up 2nd highest ranking officer left.
I wish I could have heard it from him while he was alive.
I would absolutely concur with this advice.
My paternal grandfather ran from Russia in 1923, and only he and one older brother of his were in this country - their parents and 5 surviving siblings (and the kids of the 6th) remained trapped there. Grandpa died in 1977, and while I knew a lot about his life, I knew little about his parents, grandparents, etc.
Fast forward to 1994 - I received a fantastic gift from G-d, which was my grandfather’s youngest brother moving to the US (at age 87) with the last of his children to leave Russia. He spoke only Russian and Yiddish, but his son (my father’s first cousin) could translate. To make a long story short, I didn’t waste the opportunity and started working on my family tree. 22 years later, I have over 2,000 names, I traced back to the late 1700s on my mother’s side in Poland (which is extremely difficult for Eastern European/Russian Jews), and I even met my wife because of it (I visited Mexico, where the grandchildren of that 6th sibling of my grandfather’s live). I have a picture from the late 1880s from my mother’s side with my great, great, great grandmother in it, along with my GG grandmother as a teenager, and on my dad’s side a picture from 1893 with my great grandparents at ages 26 and 30 and their 3 oldest kids (my grandfather wouldn’t be born for another 8 years). It is very exciting to find this stuff and to know what it is and WHO it is.
Take my advice, DON’T WASTE TIME! If you are interested in who you are, you need to know as much about your past as possible. If you want to give your kids roots, you need to do the same. Every day people die, get Alzheimers, have strokes, etc. Get those memories before they disappear. Gather not just names and dates, but photos and stories.
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Well Marv, your dad did his best for you and in return you shyt all over him. Now you give us this too little too late public confession. If you want forgiveness then get it from him. But spare me.
I have compiled the family history and stories, but sadly my kids have no interest now. I hope that before I die I can pass on these treasures.
Set the video camera up in the living room, get drinks and snacks, and get the grandparents to talk about their past and their families. Good to do on several levels.