Posted on 12/02/2023 12:17:41 PM PST by DallasBiff
That website at the link is SPAM...
Monty Python
And in this digital age it just gets less likely. Best case scenario really is that somebody scans them all and put them in the cloud somewhere. Of course somebody still has to keep the password and move them to another cloud or something.
One of my aunts is really into genealogy. It was interesting stuff to read once. But I’ve never really seen the attraction. I’m much more about who I became than what I came from. Maybe because I chose a vastly different path than either parent, that separation matters to me. But even people I know, and various stories I see. The post boom generations just aren’t into baggage.
How do I get a robo filter for a land line? (other than an answering machine)
Gotta wonder if millennial_redneck knows that the founder and owner of our Free Republic site is a boomer and a veteran?
My progeny are under 60 and my grand is 17! And you couldn't be more DAMNED DEAD WRONG about me and mine, if your tried harder!
My grand has NEVER met/known any generation of relatives prior to mine and yet, know ALL about generations 5 generations removed and LOVES knowing family history and what stuff belonged to whom. And that's just my side; there's also family stories from the other parent that is known, which goes back even farther.
And this is also true for my friends and their progeny and grands, and also nieces and nephews.
LOL...not most of MY books! Though I have far to many and some can be ditched, most will NEVER be thrown out and many will ONLY be sold IF money is needed extremely badly.
Perhaps it's a "class" thing and you and yours are in a different socio-economic strata.
Arguing with total strangers, whom one knows nothing about, and only using your perspective, is NOT a wise thing to do! Sweeping generalities, ABOUT ANYTHING, is unwise. So too is claiming to know what future generations will or will not do.
By NOT educating one's own kids and they repeating that error, means that future generations can be made to believe any damned thing; true or NOT!
And "family stories" ARE history; history that needs to be handed down.
I'm surprised they didn't include gasoline vehicles and meat on the list. TPTB really want to kill both of those off followed by farms.
It's a real shame that Marxism, Democratic Socialists, BLM, antifa, and Democrats aren't on the list. Those are the important things that need to disappear.
And those kids in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the ones in Syria are not warriors?
How friggin old are you?
And IF the majority turns out to be more like you, then they are/shall be far poorer for it. Also, far more easily influenced by false narratives.
No books? Then words can be changed and/or omitted, events can be rewritten or left out completely,and many books can just disappear.
No family pictures? Then you'll never know who you look like.
No family stories? Then how do you know what YOUR family went through, what talents you may have inherited, what diseases run in the family?
But I'm not trying to tell you what to do or not do. I'm just posting about what I believe is good for me and mine and also showing you a different point of view.
You’re really taking all of this far too personally. Really stop shouting. Stop taking this all personally. And recognize that when we’re talking about general truths they are... general. And all rules have exceptions. But inevitably, you do run out of exceptions.
I’m 54, so let me explain some reality to you. People change. When I was 17 I got into photography. Took tons and tons and tons of pictures. Had them developed. Put em in books. And, got rid of them like 8 years ago because they just mean anything to me anymore. I was very very into the family photos at that age. But moved on. So just because your grandkid loves them now doesn’t mean anything about the future. When they have their own kids, own life, own furniture, all this stuff they have to move around. Sure they might still be into it at 54. Or not. The demographic trends tell us they probably won’t.
It’s not a class thing, it’s a demographic trend. There have been these stories coming for years and years. I remember pre-pandemic there was a story that hit on FR about outbound old people not being able to find relatives that want their old furniture. Lots of furor and fury here on FR, people accusing younger generations of all kinds of stupid crap. I came on and said 80 year old people have 60 year old kids, and who really wants to inherit a bunch of furniture when they’re in retirement age.
I’m not arguing. You’re arguing. I’m point out how we know for a fact things have been going for decades. I’m not only using my perspective. There’s plenty of stories out there about how this trend has been going. You’re the one going on and on about your kids and grandkid. You’re the one thinking your perspective is sweeping generalities.
Out here in reality we see the trend. And part of it has to do with life expectancy. As people started living longer the age of inheritance moved up, and inheritance because less convenient. Like I pointed out above. 60 year old people don’t need to inherit furniture. Or photo albums. They’re probably getting ready to downsize because the nest is empty, the last thing they need is more stuff. Plus of course there’s the natural aging. Very young people, like too young to marry and establish their own life, tend to more interested in family history than older people. The less history a person has the more they want to “borrow” from the family. But once the personal history stacks up. Once you pick up an album that’s 35 years old and remember buying it the day it came out the family history has much less meaning. Because you have your own history now, you don’t need to borrow any.
The family stories fade. They disappear. It’s life. Things move on. Really how much does anybody know about their relatives that lived in the 1500s? Most folks it’s absolutely nothing. Well, 400 years from now (assuming we don’t blow it all up) those of us who were alive in the 1900s will be just as much relics as our 1500s ancestors. And they’re going to know just as little about us as we knew about ours.
It’s life man. We’re all very very temporary. Don’t take it personal. That stuff is bad for your blood pressure, it will make you even more temporary.
I know what you’re saying. Once I reached about 1,500 people in the family tree, it became a lot less interesting and I stopped. I’ve seen people with 10,000 or more people in their family trees and I have to ask “what’s the point?”
When you’re doing the work you inevitably ask yourself “What were they like? What were their daily lives like? What were their families like when they were getting started and when the kids were young? What make them leave ‘the old country’ and go across the ocean to start a new life?”
Of course, none of this is documented or written down and they are largely unanswerable questions. You have to just kind of invent their lives in your mind.
I’ve found some incredibly fascinating stories along the way. My German grandfather was a Russian POW in WW I and left his excellent memoirs. My mom’s family left East Yorkshire and got to Ontario, then kept moving west, province by province until finally stopping in southeastern BC. My grandmother’s aunt was the “black sheep” and ran off with a 40 year old man when she was 20. He had sold off the family stables business in Iowa so took all the family money. They went to Winnipeg with his ten year old son, got married (he was a bigamists) and created a new life running the “New Era” stables there in 1903. He died from glanders, a zoonotic horse disease and she took off again, eventually marrying her cousin. The boy was reunited with his natural mom back in Iowa after his mom hired a private detective to find him.
So the stories are fun to dig up, research and piece together.
When the Milennials finally come into their own, “Boomer generation” will be more aptly renamed the “Dine-and-Dash generation”.
You started shouting at me first. Here’s what I first said:
“I’ll give them silverware and china cabinets. Nobody eats on the “good” dishes. And the post boomer generations have learned to stop having dishes you don’t actually use. As for what happens to the silver: https://www.goodoletom.com/
Photo albums go away as soon as nobody alive remembers who those people are. I have tossed many many photos when dealing with dead relatives stuff.”
No shouting, no judging, no telling you about you and yours. Simply talking about how things are working, what the well documented trends are, and have been for most of this century.
And you replied:
“”NOBODY EATS ON GOOD DISHES” ? Really?
Perhaps “NOBODY” you know, but I know Gen Xers who do and they though they save it for holidays and special events, they also DO use silver of ALL kinds...from eating utensils to ice bucket, serving dishes, and yes, even napkin rings!
Perhaps you and others don’t care about your family history; however, as long as THAT is kept alive and photos have names on the back of them, old photos and photo albums WILL be kept and “family stories” will be handed down!
And I can tell you that my Gen Z Grand LOVES all of the old photos and family stories. No way will these things be thrown away, once I’m gone. “
All shouty and judgy and just plain silly.
Now your questions. Not no books for me. I love books. I have tons and tons of books. And buy them faster than I read them. BUT the next couple generations aren’t that into them. We’ve got multiple generations of non-readers out there. And even the readers like e-books. It’s just how it is.
I honestly don’t give a crap who I look like. It means nothing. Who INFLUENCED me is much more important. Who taught me this value, or this skill, THAT matters. Although truthfully often times not family. Teachers, employers, friends, neighbors. And sometimes family.
Specific stories for my family don’t mean much. I mean there’s a couple of cool stories. Like when my grandmother was in some food line during the Depression and Al Capone showed and gave everybody in the line money. She would never hear anybody say anything bad about syphilitic mobster after that. But, really, most of these stories can be replaced with the general. The Depression sucked. Good enough. As for talents inherited, if they even can be, I don’t really care. I do what I do. Some stuff I learned hard, some stuff I learned easy. As for diseases. I’m lucky, at 54 I’m on no prescriptions. But, really, if I was that concerned I’d pay for a genetic work-up, way more accurate than family stories.
And I’m not telling you what to do, or what your currently known family will do. I’m telling you the demographic trends that we’ve been watching happen. A lot of this stuff has been getting less and less important to each generation for a long time. The specifics of which generation of your family will cross the Rubicon and toss the family photos doesn’t matter nearly as much as recognizing these are the trends, and it’ll probably happen. Unless it doesn’t. Maybe your family will remain outliers well into the 3000s.
Part of my due diligence nowadays is to research article authors.
It’s a fruitful approach.
Thank you. You have assuaged my previous guilt.
There’s always some fun. And then there’s the not fun, like my great grandfather the Nazi sympathizer (that side of the family came over from Germany just a little before WWI). I’m glad there are people doing it. I’m even glad there’s people doing it in my family. But it’s not for me.
“Racism” won’t disappear when the white boomers are gone as their children will take the slot after them. And then their children and then their children …
I have given many examples of WHY getting rid of old photos ( and I'm talking about ancient to modern ones ), books, and family stories are a bad idea. Yet you keep talking about YOU and YOUR point of view, but blaming me for that.
Look...today's kids, who come from many different walks of life and backgrounds are easily swayed by "group think" and imbecilic CRAP on Tik Tok ( TIC TOC? ) and by Commie profs.
WHY?
Because they have NEVER been taught stuff at home and don't know any better.
Everything on line is NOT factual at all! And they certainly are NOT getting much need FACTUAL knowledge at any school!
Why are the stupid holding pro-Hamas riots and beating up Jews?
Why is common sense no longer "COMMON"?
Why do many wonder WHO and WHAT they are?
And NO, these examples don't include EVERYONE, but far too many! And is the result of throwing out what used to work. And the more things, ideas, and traditions that get thrown away, the worse things get.
So yes, things change, but that doesn't always mean for the best.
My blood pressure is most probably far better than yours is and my family will continue to be raised well and NOT become part of the sheep; unless a "bad apple" comes along, which admittedly, can happen.
So don't worry ab out me and mine, because WE are fine and shall continue to be.
I know a LOT of 20’s-40’s and they want NOTHING....Not SILVERWARE, NOT CHINA, NO BEAUTIFUL TABLECLOTHS, ONLY PICTURES that have THEM in them, no fabulous ART or Collectibles....NOTHING but a PHONE....some of them don’t even want a car!
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