What do we know about our ancestors? In most cases, we know their names and perhaps a few important dates in their lives, such as birth, marriage, or death. We might know the names and important dates of their family members. In a few cases, we might even have a few grainy photos. Now, let's turn the tables: what will your descendants know about YOU?
J. Peder Zane writes that people of today have the ability to leave a cradle-to-grave record of their lives so that 50, 100, even 500 years hence, people will be able to see how their forebears looked and moved, hear them speak, and learn about their aspirations and achievements. A growing number of gerontologists also recommend that retirees should engage in the healthy and productive exercise of composing a Life Review.
J. Peder Zane writes that people of today have the ability to leave a cradle-to-grave record of their lives so that 50, 100, even 500 years hence, people will be able to see how their forebears looked and moved, hear them speak, and learn about their aspirations and achievements. A growing number of gerontologists also recommend that retirees should engage in the healthy and productive exercise of composing a Life Review.
Today, have the tools and the desire to record the lives of almost everybody. Genealogists have always suffered from a lack of information about people's everyday lives. We now have the power to change that. Not only can we leave written records and find a way to make sure those records are preserved, we can also leave audio and video legacies. Indeed, the technology available today will someday be improved to the point where our yet-unborn descendants will be able to hold virtual conversations with holograms of their ancestors that draw on digital legacies to reflect how the dead would have responded.
Are you saving all the videos made with your video recorder? How about the photos from your cell phone? If so, will they still be available to future generations? Do you need to save ALL those photos? Who needs 75 photos of your cat? While technology is wonderful, someone today has to go through the digital and non-digital remnants of your life and take steps to preserve the items that will be important to future generations.
Cassette tapes, VHS tapes, hard disk drives, flash drives, DVDs, cloud storage and even paper may not last for long and probably will not be readable in the future.
How will you be remembered?
You can read J. Peder Zane's article at http://goo.gl/ih67Y.
