Share Your Family History

If your goal is to build a unique family legacy, heritage and fortune that spans generations, then you need to make sure that all family members understand what it is that is worth preserving – what makes this family a special group?

A big step towards that is making sure that the family history is passed along and added to in each generation.

Does your family have a specific professional focus?  If so, what is it, how did it get started, who contributes to it and how.  Why is the focus important to your family?  For example, some families produce accountants – who was the first accountant in the family, what were their significant contributions, how did it come about that someone followed in their footsteps, etc.

Does your family have a focus on music, charity, everyone being educated to a certain level – whatever makes your family special, emphasize in the family history stories.

How you pass your stories along depends on the culture and habits of your family.  Some families regale each other at each gathering (verbal informal history), others make a special effort to use part of their family meeting to present family history (verbal formal history), some families create storylines of individual family members (living or dead) in book, audio or video format (multi media history) and others are beginning to develop and use secured family websites or unsecured public blogs or social media pages to pass along family information(1).  Many combine methods.  The point is that you need to make a conscious effort to pass along the version of the family history that builds and carries forward your unique family culture and legacy.

1 Obviously caution must be used when publishing family information for public consumption, to avoid potential for identity theft, unwanted publicity and criminal acts against family members.