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The photo legacy you leave your kids
Prepare your family photos so they provide comfort—not a burden—to your children when you're gone. It’s one of the most meaningful legacies you can leave your kids.
Don’t leave behind three obsolete devices filled with thousands of digital photos for your children to find when you’re gone. Prepare your pictures so they provide comfort—not a burden—to your children: It’s one of the most meaningful things you can do for your kids.
Prepare for the inevitable.
We are all going to die one day. Hopefully you’re not thinking about this inevitability too often, but it’s wise to prepare: Have a will drafted by an estate attorney, prepare your finances and insurance, and organize your records. Even this common wisdom is too often ignored by many.
So is it only the organizationally obsessed who will think about something as mundane as preparing your photos? I hope not.
The legacy of family photos, stories, and the artifacts of memory—scrapbooks, letters, heirlooms—may be of greater value to your heirs than your monetary legacy. Don’t underestimate how much a connection to the past will mean to your loved ones someday!
All that stuff can be a burden to your kids.
It’s convenient as heck to have a basement in which to toss those extra boxes of stuff. But Americans have taken consumerism to new levels in recent years, with shows about hoarding captivating television viewers and paid storage facilities dotting suburban landscapes. We love our stuff, for sure. And while I doubt you are a hoarder, chances are your closets and garage are housing plenty of stuff.
Julie Hall, author of The Boomer Burden: Dealing with Your Parents' Lifetime Accumulation of Stuff, speaks from decades of experience when she says that the next generation will undoubtedly be burdened by all that you will leave behind. “I can virtually guarantee they will not care for these items the way you do, and often are upset and resentful when having to sell or discard them,” she says. “When this happens, hasty decisions are made to ‘just get rid of it.’”
Her advice? “Choose only your favorite things and let the rest go. Future generations will be most appreciative.”
Organize your family photos so they provide comfort, not nuisance.
Don’t assume that your library of family photos is exempt from that “just get rid of it” mentality. If what you leave behind is messy or overwhelming, well, then it’s more of a burden than a gift.
Here’s how to approach your photo organization project, in seven simple steps:
1 - Organize.
Tossing family photos can be one of the hardest things we do. There is a guilt associated with it—those pictures meant something to someone, after all. But do they mean anything to you? Will they matter to your children? Before you can determine which pictures to keep and which to trash, you must first organize them.
Choose a method that suits you, and dive in: Chronological, thematic, or by individual.
If you think creating a straight visual timeline of your life is best, keep in mind that it’s unlikely you will know exact dates for everything; sorting photographs into decades might be most efficient.
Sorting pictures by theme—birthdays, vacations, Christmas, childhood milestones, etc.—is a popular option for those who may want to create books or slideshows down the road. It can be fun to see the similarities in your traditions or amongst your children, too.
It’s possible that you are undertaking this organization project with the idea of divvying up the treasures for your kids. The most challenging part here, particularly with physical photographs, is that multiple children are likely to appear in one photo. I suggest creating one pile for those shots, and prioritizing having those images digitized first.
2 - Toss.
Delete pictures from your phone. Throw away old photos. Easier said than done? Yes, but once complete, this process can feel liberating. And it will be tremendously less burdensome for your heirs. Find advice for how to start trashing digital photos in this helpful article. And don’t forget to place the digital images you choose to keep into albums or folders sorted by date or theme—a hard drive filled with thousands of pictures in no particular order will be more overwhelming than inviting!
Do the same thing with the piles of physical photos you sorted in step one—begin to throw away any that do not hold meaning. Get rid of duplicates and indecipherable pictures.
On the most basic level, ask yourself: Does the picture tell a story that you want to remember? Is it a spectacular photo? If the answer to either of those is YES, it’s a keeper. If not, consider if someone else may value it, or put it in the garbage.
3 - Caption.
Now that you’ve sorted and narrowed down your collection, it’s time to preserve the most basic details of your important pictures. Use a photo-safe pen to write names, dates, and places on the back of your physical photos. Write legibly, and include full names whenever possible. Don’t assume your children will remember their toddler friends’ names or even their grandparents’, for that matter.
If you are technologically savvy, consider inputting all the caption information into the metadata of your digital photos. If that’s too ambitious, print out the most important ones, even on regular office paper, so you can write the information on them.
Seem like a crazy amount of work? Perhaps it is a lot, but consider this: What value will these photos hold if your family members do not even know what they represent? (None.) Alternatively, what value will they hold if you share not only the vital details, but the stories behind them? (Priceless.)
4 - Designate.
Don’t leave it for your kids and your grandkids and your siblings to hash out who gets what. Determine who might want your photos, and divvy them up accordingly.
Many people find that gifting old photos, especially, to their loved ones, is a worthwhile endeavor to do now. Sit with those you love, use your photographs as prompts to share the stories of your life, and see how much they are cherished! Your time and story sharing are the best gifts you can give. If you can’t part with your pictures just yet, share your intentions for bequesting them when you are gone.
5 - Create.
There are strong reasons why we hold our family photos dear. They connect us to the past, testify to our triumphs and experiences, and make us remember. And smile.
Share the smiles with those you love by creating something special from your favorite photo moments:
enlarge and frame a single print
send a digital image via email with more than a #tt hashtag: write its story, share the memories it conjures up
By creating something—and sharing it—you are giving life to the stories behind your photos.
6 - Permit.
Give permission to your children to toss your things. You may have an attachment to your stuff, but your children will find their own connection to what you leave behind—and it may be to something completely unexpected.
Let them know that you do not expect them to keep everything, and if you have a preferred charity, tell them you’d be happy to have your things be donated. Likewise, tell them which photographs and heirlooms you would most like to pass on, and why. When your loved ones are armed with this knowledge, their decision-making becomes much less emotionally charged, and they are more likely to hold onto and cherish those things that hold true meaning.
7 - Hire.
If all of the above seems too daunting, or if your time is simply taken up by other priorities right now, consider hiring a professional photo organizer. They can jump in at any stage of the process or help out with just one step.
“Stories are everything.”
Two major benefits of stories & story sharing are bringing genealogy to life, and helping us feel connected to the past. Learn why experts value stories so much.
During an evening discussion focused on grief and resilience, one theme continued to pop up: the importance of stories and story sharing.
The noted panelists at the New York Open Center, including award-winning journalist Soledad O'Brien and noted Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates, Jr., opened up about their own family histories, personal loss, and the things that helped them heal. And amidst the many nuggets of wisdom they passed on to the audience, quite a few of their prescriptions for resilience were applicable at any time in our lives, not only during a period of grieving.
Here are two huge benefits of storytelling that were highlighted during this dynamic conversation.
Stories help us feel connected.
I remember asking my grandmother where we were from. “America,” she would say. Before that? “It doesn’t matter.”
I once asked her something about her school years; she teared up, but remained silent. “I did not have a happy childhood.” Case closed.
My grandparents’ past was a complete mystery to me. And I am not alone.
While some kids grew up with tales of “remember when” and “when I was little…” around the dinner table, many others—often children of immigrants—were told little to nothing about their family’s narrative before they were born.
Soledad O’Brien, whose father came from Australia and her mother from Cuba, says her parents both decidedly left the past behind. “We’ll just start anew,” she says was their prevailing attitude. Like my family, O’Brien’s didn’t talk about the past at all. “Repressing things is a very solid strategy!” she said with a laugh.
Of course, it’s a strategy for coping and, yes, beginning anew. But apart from fueling that fresh start, the decision to bury family history—so common among immigrants in the first half of the 20th century—does nothing to connect the next generation to their past.
O’Brien was a Season Three guest on Finding Your Roots, and she says that she derived great value from learning more about her family history. “As you’re trying to figure out yourself, these threads begin to matter more and more,” she said.
“At the time, I was feeling insecure as an entrepreneur,” O’Brien said; but recalling her family’s history of perseverance, and drawing from that history of strength, “felt heartening, and emotional. There is this story that I’m connected to.”
Those stories helped O’Brien “feel somehow rooted to a place.” The stories made her feel connected. “Even if you don’t know you have a gaping hole, you do,” O’Brien said.
Stories bring genealogy to life.
DNA drove the original idea for Gates’s previous genealogical series, African American Lives, which explored race, roots, and identity with guests including Oprah Winfrey, Ben Carson, and Chris Rock. Gates would watch his subjects stare at new genealogical documents; they would read the words, but as he says, it wasn’t the pages of data that moved them. “They broke down and cried over the stories,” he recalls.
And so it is the stories that take center stage in his current PBS series, Finding Your Roots, whose fourth season, currently in production, will air this fall (guests include Larry David, Bernie Sanders, Amy Shumer, Ted Danson, and Paul Rudd).
“Every society has a genealogy tradition,” Gates said at the Open Center event.
“You are, in part, the sum of your ancestors” Gates said in the Washington Post, and researching one’s background helps people figure out “how you became uniquely you.”
“What you get from a genealogist is a binder of documents; you don’t get stories,” Gates said. “You have to translate that stuff into stories, and I’m very proud to be able to do that.”
Often guests on Finding Your Roots hire the team of genealogists from the show to continue their family research privately. They want to flesh out their family trees even further—and to “meet” more family members...discover their stories.
What is revealed can be life-changing to the guests, Gates said.
His own most treasured family heirloom remains to this day the one that jump-started his interest in family history: a photograph of his great-great grandmother Jane Gates. “It’s precious to me.” That connection with his own roots—Gates says he passes by and looks at the photo every day in his home—“gives me solidity and stability. It makes me feel good.”
And maybe that’s the best part of sharing stories, after all: Stories make us feel good.
As Soledad O’Brien said, “Stories are everything.”
Related reading:
- There are plenty of reasons to share family stories, from raising resilient kids to helping understand oneself.
- No one will tell your life stories but you. Start small by saving family photos & preserving stories so you create a lasting, meaningful legacy, one step at a time.
- Interested in working with a personal historian who can interview you or a family member to elicit & shape your stories for a book? Let's chat.
9 reasons why your adoption journey is worth preserving
Nine reasons why preserving your family’s story in an Adoption Journey book is a worthwhile investment, including making it part of your Gotcha Day celebration.
“On our wedding day, Mike and I vowed willingly to accept children from God. Little did we know on that day how our journey would take form...””
Mary Lou and Mike Engrassia of West Babylon, NY, were amazed, overjoyed, and even a bit overwhelmed as a path to parenthood they never expected unfurled before them.
That journey, and the memories of feelings, experiences, and challenges met, is a part of their life they cherish. Their adoption journey made them who they are as parents, but more importantly, who they are as a family with their daughter.
One way to preserve that journey for the future is to create an Adoption Journey book, highlighting for your child(ren) a side of their parents—and their unique family—that likely wasn’t evident from any child-centric baby books, or even their own treasured life book.
Here are nine reasons why an Adoption Journey book may be an investment well worth making.
1. An heirloom book takes your unique adoption journey into the future.
Whether you have a formal way of presenting your special recollections of your adoption journey or not, you no doubt regularly make the effort to share them with your child verbally. “I have told my children the stories many times,” says Teresa Baldinucci, a mom of three adopted children in Patchogue, NY, who sees the value in preserving those stories in book form, as well.
An Adoption Journey book ensures your family’s precious journey will carry on intact to your grandchildren and beyond. Indeed, pulling it out, like any family memory book, is a surefire way to spark conversation and reminiscing—essentially, keeping the family story sharing going.
2. Your journey to becoming a parent makes the story of your family different.
Once an adopted child is settled into his or her forever family, milestones and the related keepsakes become much the same as for any other family. “It is the journey to that day that makes the story different. And the journey of adoption starts long before your child is placed in your arms,” Mary Lou says.
For her and Mike, that journey included heartfelt talks about their options, much research, even more paperwork (including numerous rounds of fingerprinting), and a home study before they finally got The Call. “‘It’s a girl!’ Then over the fax at work came a blurry photo of the most adorable baby with full cheeks—Yuan Le Yi—waiting for us in the Hunan Province.” Along with 13 other families, the couple spent 11 days in several different places in China. The endless paperwork was finally capped off with a sealed brown envelope given to them when they left China, along with strict instructions not to open it. “Upon going through customs at LAX, the envelope was opened, and Yuan Le Yi became a United States citizen,” Mary Lou shares.
Now that's a story worthy of preservation in a book!
3. You may forget all the moving parts that synchronized to make you a family.
“When we were going through the process, every day seemed like an eternity. Funny, though, as I try to recall all of it now, years later, I really had to try and think about the timeline,” Mary Lou says. Recreating a visual timeline of the adoption journey can help spark memories, and for children, bring a new understanding of the emotional journey their parents undertook to become a family.
Having an editor who can help recreate the entire adoption process by going through files and stacks of papers, your old date planner and photographs, is a proven way to document your family’s origin story accurately. But going beyond that with interviews of your recollections and feelings during that time is what brings your family's story to life, what gives it power and depth.
4. It’s a beautiful thing to commit the dreams for your family’s future to memory.
While you think you’ll remember Every. Single. Thing. from the time you get home with your child, well...most new parents simply don’t. Sleep deprivation is an equal-opportunity affliction for ALL parents, after all!
During the first weeks at home, emotions run so high that specific, detailed memories may not gel for the long term. Adoptive parents often have the additional challenge of a child who is “mourning” the loss of familiar people and surroundings. Even a baby who came from less-than-ideal circumstances is still undergoing a major adjustment. “Our daughter immediately bonded with me, but it took her longer to bond with Mike,” Mary Lou says. “During those first weeks together as a family, we experienced a wide gamut of emotions: joy, stress, tears, though most of all intense love.”
And it’s not just the whats, whens, and hows that can begin to fade from memory; it’s the notions of what the future may hold, as well. “It's no different than when expecting a birth child. As a parent, you hold dreams for your as yet unknown child, and those are things you want to share with them in the future,” Teresa says. An Adoption Journey book is a wonderful option to not only celebrate your child(ren) and the family you have become, but to reflect upon your dreams for the future. What do your children dream of? What do you hope for them? Including handwritten notes in your book can be a heartfelt way to connect the past journey and the future of your family.
5. It has the potential to become a “holiday” tradition.
Whether you call it Family Day or Gotcha Day, the yearly celebration of the day you all officially became a family calls for a sentimental tradition. Thumbing through an Adoption Journey book is an ideal way to spark memories—and increasingly thoughtful observations and questions from your growing child.
6. It can simplify your life.
Mementos of your adoption journey can multiply, and get misplaced. “An adoption journey book is a great idea, one I wish I had, rather than having to have so many different ‘tools’ that I have used to create keepsakes of our journey. I have notebooks and files, photos in boxes, and more,” Mary Lou says. But even if, like Mary Lou, you’ve already saved your keepsakes in an organized way, you might want to consider having your mementos digitized (to save space) and memorialized in a book (to reveal and preserve their stories, beyond just their sentimental value).
Even digital photos, videos, and other electronic files can be challenging to find years later, especially as platforms evolve and laptops and other personal devices are upgraded. A book is a forever platform, and one that is always accessible for prompting remembrance and joy.
7. Family stories are gifts to our children.
Not only do the stories we tell our kids help them relate and feel like an essential part of the family, they strengthen them and, research shows, make them undeniably more resilient. As author Bruce Feiler wrote in a viral NYT piece:
The single most important thing you can do for your family may be the simplest of all: develop a strong family narrative.
By preserving your family’s unique narrative in an Adoption Journey Book, you are giving your child(ren) a valuable tool that, in the long run, will not only help stir memories, but will also help solidify their identity.
8. It may ease your anxiety.
You know that perpetual worry—stoked by your friends’ relentless Pinterest-board updates—that you’re not doing enough in the way of memory-keeping? That your photos are scattered across devices and that you only made a milestone book for your first child, then...nothing?
Creating an Adoption Journey book with a personal historian is a guaranteed way to ease that nagging guilt, to create something worthwhile and meaningful without any of the DIY angst. We do the heavy lifting; you get the heirloom of a lifetime.
Oh, and one more (not-so-little) thing:
9. Remembering is an enjoyable process.
Any family that wants to preserve their adoption journey in a heirloom book must commit to doing two essential things:
Gathering materials (adoption files, mementos such as plane tickets and fingerprint cards, family photos), and
Talking about your memories and journey with a professional family biographer.
The “talking” part is not only easy, it is rewarding. The act of reminiscing about your family's stories with an open-hearted and interested listener can be healing, empowering, and centering. So even before you've received your book, you will have received a real gift: the gift of sharing.
What is your reason for wanting to preserve your family’s adoption journey?
We're willing to bet there are many reasons for preserving your adoption journey as there are reasons for adopting in the first place. Why do you want to preserve your family’s adoption journey in a book? Please share with us in the comments below, or give our founder, Dawn, a call at 917.922.7415 to see how we can work together.
Related Reading:
An Adoption Book Primer: Learn the difference between a life book, an adoption story book, and an Adoption Journey book.
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The tyranny of the family heirloom
Maybe it's true that "nobody wants your parents' stuff," but before you donate their things, tell the stories of your family heirlooms, preserving your memories.
“Sorry, Nobody Wants Your Parents’ Stuff,” reads the Forbes headline. The article explores how so much of what we inherit from our parents does not get saved, but rather donated, sold, or trashed.
“If you’re thinking your grown children will gladly accept your parents' items, if only for sentimental reasons, you’re likely in for an unpleasant surprise.”
I get it: Most of us aren’t buying fine china to entertain with, and we don’t want to be weighed down by more stuff. But despite this article’s pessimism (“‘I don’t think there is a future’ for the possessions of our parents’ generation”), I have faith that we can find creative ways to preserve the heirlooms that matter—and still donate most of their STUFF to charity.
So, which heirlooms matter—and which ones are even ‘heirlooms’?
Just because your parents left you everything in their house doesn’t mean you need to keep everything. Or even half. Or any of it. But while you’re assessing their possessions for potential monetary worth, I beg you to spend some time with those things that hold memories.
Consider the historical value (I'm talking family history here) and the sentimental value (and by that, I do not mean feeling guilty that you should hold on to something, but feeling a poignant tug at your heartstrings when you think of a particular item).
Did your father sit in “his chair” to read the newspaper à la Archie Bunker every day? Was that cushioned window seat your mom’s favorite reading nook? Is the painting on the wall an original passed down through generations?
Many of our things are just that—functional things that make our lives comfortable or easier. Many of our things, though, hold stories. Those, in my opinion, are the best heirlooms.
Find treasures to keep as keepsakes.
Pick one or two things (more if you’re sentimental) that hold special meaning for you, and keep them. I recommend choosing items that you can keep close in some way:
a painting, blanket, or piece of furniture that you can incorporate into your home and use on a regular basis;
an item of jewelry, a shawl, or some other accessory that you can wear;
or something practical that your loved one used that you can, too—such as their e-reader, favorite books, or a kitchen appliance.
Having something tangible from your loved one’s life nearby can be consoling, reassuring, even healing.
Give new life to old items, guilt-free.
Do you adore your dad’s chair in theory, but think it’s ugly as sin? Love the idea of cuddling in your grandmother’s sweater, but hate the style and musty smell?
Allison Gilbert had her father’s collection of silk neckties woven into a wall hanging, and her grandmother’s handwritten coffee cake recipe memorialized on an everyday plate. She has made an art form out of transforming our loved ones’ STUFF into something meaningful, and details 85 very specific ways to do so in her book Passed and Present: Keeping Memories of Loved Ones Alive.
It’s the memories of the things that matter, after all.
A thing is only special if we have enlivened it with some special meaning. It is an heirloom when it has a story to tell—and someone (you?) tells it for posterity.
So once you narrow your lost loved one's belongings to those precious items that hold some emotional value, do something with them. Check out Gilbert's book for ideas (there really is something unique to suit everyone's tastes and values, in my opinion) or come up with something on your own.
Whatever you do, let the stories of those things shine through.
In her family history book, Kathleen Rath Smith remembers how her father would always read in “his” chair next to the radio. “When he came in, we got out of that chair!” We used photographs to show her parents' home and surroundings, and Kathleen as narrator recounts the stories of her childhood.
Tell the stories of their stuff.
How can you maintain the specialness your loved one's things convey without inheriting the bulk of all that stuff?
How can you transform their things into cherished family heirlooms?
Take pictures of the items before donating them.
Why not consider having your most special items professionally photographed, whether for an heirloom legacy book or for an impactful wall hanging?
A professional photographer such as The Heirloomist's Shana Novak can turn an artful lens on everyday items, imbuing them with a graphic punch that can be surprisingly emotional. Check out how Bob Woodruff's wife, Lee, turned a pair of her husband's combat boots into a meaningful work of art shot by Novak; or read stories of such seemingly mundane items as a cassette tape, a stuffed bear, and even a set of yellow pencils, brought to life through heirloom photography. The resulting pieces of art preserve your loved one's things visually, and moreover spark conversation so that the stories can be told and retold in the future.
You can now keep these images in remembrance of the loved one you have lost and wish to honor—and unburden yourself of the items themselves.
Don't just capture the stories of your heirlooms, but write them, too.
Whether you jot down memories on an index card and tape it to the back of your photograph or go the extra mile and create an heirloom legacy book from your stories, do tell your stories. We've offered advice on how to use old family photos as memory prompts; so now we thought we'd share examples of how to tell the story of a THING.
Here are two spreads from two different client books, both works in progress. The stories of these things are short vignettes that add insight into the subject's broader stories, but each can stand alone as a short read that honors their memories and begins to create a unique family legacy.
As you can see, the stories of these heirlooms are not really stories of things at all; rather, they are the stories of those who held, touched, and lived with those things. Your heirlooms' stories are the stories of your loved ones.
What things in your life have a special story to tell? What has a deceased parent or grandparent left you that might lend itself to sharing a wonderful story?
Let’s make genealogy a thing of the past
You’ll never eradicate the need for tracing your ancestors’ history. But you can ensure that the next generation will NOT need to search, scour, recreate, or imagine your own generation’s experience. Let's make genealogy a thing of the past for the next generation.
What we should be doing to make the genealogical quest easier—or nonexistent—for the next generation.
Everyone’s a genealogist.
Family history is a booming business. Television programs such as Finding Your Roots and Who Do You Think You Are—part treasure hunt, part reality-TV at its most personal—use celebrities as a hook, but they ultimately tap into our deepest desires for connection and pedigree.
Genealogy has been transformed by technology and science. On the tech side, the Internet has made discovering archival documents including census records, birth and death certificates, and ship manifests easier than ever. And on the science side, DNA analysis is now accessible to the masses, relatively cheap and certainly easy to obtain. As a result, more and more people are making strides uncovering their family history through sites such as Ancestry and FamilySearch, among many others.
Researching your family tree takes time—and is rife with brick walls.
Memes among genealogy buffs poke fun at the addictive nature of researching one’s family tree, and the elusiveness of stories than shed light on one’s ancestors.
Brick walls, names with variant spellings, destroyed records, and incorrectly transcribed documents are just a few of the common problems the questing family historian encounters.
And yet…
Do you want to leave a family mystery for the next generation?
And yet, while many folks get lost in the past, uncovering clues and clicking on those alluring green hint leaves, they never bother to create a paper trail or an archive of stories for their own ancestors. Do we all want to leave a mystery for the next generation? Do you think that spending hours in local libraries and municipal archives searching for your great-grandparents is fun?
Maybe, sure. It is fun—especially when you discover something unexpected, or when you finally score a photo of a long-lost relative.
But wouldn’t it be abundantly more rewarding (and time-efficient!) to have been left a book of your families’ stories, complete with captioned photographs that identify the subjects and documents that reveal their path to the present?
Many people catch the genealogy bug when a parent or other family elder dies and leaves a handful of mysterious documents that ultimately require further research. Why were they saved? What will they lead to?
Imagine discovering not just a file of mysterious papers or a drawer full of dusty, unlabeled family photos, but a thoughtful history of your family? How great would it be to be handed down a full genealogical record? Even better, a series of stories that showcase your ancestors’ personalities, struggles, and journeys?
How you can help make genealogy a thing of the past.
Okay, that’s an exaggeration. Genealogy will be around forever; and the further back one successfully traces one’s roots, the further back yet one still wants to go! Meaning: You’ll never eradicate the need for tracing your ancestors’ history. But you can ensure that the next generation will NOT need to search, scour, recreate, or imagine your own generation’s experience.
Leave them records. Most importantly, leave them stories. Share your knowledge. Be generous with your wisdom and your time (sharing your stories can be one of the most rewarding things you do in life, after all!).
Would you like to preserve your memories and leave a complete family history for your children? Here are a few simple ways to get started (admittedly, some more fun than others):
1 Sort your photos.
Depending on the sheer volume of your family photos, this may be an enjoyable endeavor or a dreaded chore. If it seems daunting, set aside a corner of a room for the project so you can leave the mess accessible and revisit your organizing when the mood strikes. Ask your family members to pitch in.
Archival photo storage boxes such as this are a great way to store your family photos long-term, but consider simply using piles and sticky notes during the organization phase.
2 Label your photos.
You don’t have to label every picture. (Professional genealogists might disagree with this approach, but I want you to get started, and being realistic is key to that, in my opinion.) Use a photo-safe pen, plug in metadata for your digital images, or use a trustworthy digital app to record details. The most important thing is labeling at least some of the pictures with your family’s full names, spelled correctly and written legibly; along with place names and event details if you have them (what was the occasion for the photograph? where was it taken? how old were the subjects?).
3 Digitize your photos.
I recommend hiring a professional to scan your photos. If you do it yourself, make sure to scan at a minimum of 300dpi (higher for much smaller photos you may want to enlarge later). The best thing about using a professional photo organizer, in my opinion, is that your photos will be accessible—not a jumble of unidentifiable files named IMG_1983 and IMG_5910. What good is a hard drive full of photos if you can’t find the ones you want when you want them?
4 Talk about your childhood.
Around the dinner table, on long car drives, over the phone. At family reunions, yes, but in everyday scenarios, too. Sharing stories helps us raise resilient, emotionally happy children, and it’s rewarding. You may roll your eyes when recalling your own grandfather’s tales of “back in the day, I had to walk to school…”—but I bet you do so with a gleam in your eye and a tingle down your spine. Help develop a family lore—or, as Bruce Feiler calls it, a “family narrative.”
5 Write your stories.
Whether you keep a journal or write in one of the myriad family memory-keeping books available in bookstores, just do it! Scribble two sentences a day if that's all you have time for, or set aside an hour every Sunday to contemplate your past. Whatever your approach, I guarantee whatever you write will be cherished by those you love.
6 Organize your documents.
If you’re anything like me, your birth certificate was filed at one point, but after the passport needed renewal, well, I’m not quite sure where I left it. When my mother passed away, I was meticulous with the record-keeping—but now those files contain a wealth of papers that can be tossed, and they’re all mixed up with her vital documents I’d like to preserve (and I DON”T want to leave this entire box as a burden to my own child one day). This is admittedly a big—unappealing—organization project, one of those critical things that remains on my to-do list…but I vow to join you in GETTING THIS DONE. Let’s do it.
7 Find your family stories.
Did your parents or grandparents leave behind a journal? Do you have a stash of letters amidst your family heirlooms? Maybe you or your spouse kept diaries or scrapbooks as children. Even your ancestor’s handwritten recipe file may be a wonderful trove of stories worth handing down. And photos are undoubtedly one of the best memory prompts.
Gather those precious keepsakes, and go through them. They’ll provide fodder for story-sharing with your kids, and spark memories you’d thought long forgotten. Consider digitizing the most important and meaningful items, whether yourself with a phone app or by a professional.
This Royal Albert teacup is lovely, sure, but I saved just one of my mother's set after she passed away so I could commune with her in my memories over tea. I photographed it and recorded its stories, too—yes, this teacup holds plenty of vivid stories, and I'm sure your family heirlooms do as well.
8 Record the provenance of your family heirlooms.
We’re talking the 3-dimensional kind of heirlooms here—think jewelry, a watch, furniture, a set of china dinnerware. Not everything will be worth saving or passing on to the next generation, of course, but for those things that you consider worthy, fill out a simple tag with vital information (Hannah Bergen Heirlooms offer beautiful ones). When the time comes, your kids and their kids will have all they need to fairly consider whether or not they want to bring those ugly dishes that hold “sentimental value” into their homes!
Without realizing it, you’ve set the stage for a beautiful family heirloom book.
If you’ve done all of the above, then you’ve no doubt come to value your own family stories and respect the need to preserve them for future generations. What you might not have realized is that you’ve also gathered most of the materials you need for creating a genuinely unique family heirloom.
Would you like to see how we could honor your stories in a bespoke book? With all the legwork done, taking the next step is easy…and hopefully inevitable.
If you're just getting started on preserving your family's stories and lineage, why not print this page and check things off as you go? Sometimes just having a reminder can help set us on the right path.
Congratulations on taking the first step in creating your own legacy!
#genealogy #lifestories #memoriesmatter #familyhistory #familyphotos #storytelling
What you can learn from Gloria Vanderbilt & Anderson Cooper
You might be surprised to learn what Anderson Cooper calls “the most valuable year of my life.” It's the period when he and his mother Gloria Vanderbilt maintained an email correspondence that delved deep—into the feelings they had previously not spoken about, and into their experiences both shared and wholly individual. The back-and-forth format of questions and stories is engaging, and most meaningful in its sense of discovery, of a grown man coming to know his mother in wonderful new ways. Why not be inspired to follow in their conversational footsteps?
I recently finished reading The Rainbow Comes and Goes: A Mother and Son on Life, Love, and Loss (HarperCollins 2016) by Anderson Cooper and Gloria Vanderbilt. Do I recommend this book? Sure I do—it's chock full of details about these celebrities' lives, and in particular accounts of young Gloria's early years read like high fiction. But it's not the drama and inside scoop that endear this book to me; it's the naturally unfolding "getting-to-know-you" that happens between mother and son.
Cooper and his mother undertook an extended email conversation, one in which they were able to—finally—explore deep emotions and speak of tragedies of which they had previously chosen to remain silent. Vanderbilt's words are poetic, ripe with passion, honesty, and resilience. Cooper's questions are probing, and raw in their search for an understanding not only of his mother, but of the impact their relationship and experiences have had on him as a person.
“[Even as adults] we don’t often explore new ways of talking and conversing, and we put off discussing complex issues or raising difficult questions,” Cooper writes. “We think we’ll do it one day, in the future, but life gets in the way, and then it’s too late.”
“I didn’t want there to be anything left unsaid between my mother and me, so on her ninety-first birthday I decided to start a new kind of conversation with her, a conversation about her life. Not the mundane details, but the things that really matter, her experiences that I didn’t know about or fully understand....”
And what a gift these two gave to one another! Check this book out from the library, or better yet, buy it for yourself. I hope you may be inspired to embark upon your own extended conversation (theirs was via email over the course of a year) with a parent or other loved one.
“If not now, when?”
Why not...start an extended email conversation with your parents to discover the experiences that shaped them?
Anderson Cooper did. And it resulted in the most meaningful year of his life.
Of course you can open a wonderful dialogue with a loved one by writing good old-fashioned letters (and who doesn't love getting a hand-written letter!), but email is by far a more expedient way to communicate—and one that may be easier to turn into your own keepsake book later, should that idea appeal.
“The most valuable year of my life”
Not sure your mother or father would find such an exchange worthwhile? Perhaps give them the book. Or just bite the bullet and express your desire to get to know them better: Simply ask.
Vanderbilt was new to email at the time she began this endeavor with her son, but despite some initial reservations, her written correspondence matured and deepened over the course of the year they wrote to one another. And I can almost guarantee that once the floodgates are open—and each of you is able to see how deeply affected you are by the other's insights and memories—the richer the experience will become.
As Cooper writes:
“It’s the kind of conversation I think many parents and their grown children would like to have, and it has made this past year the most valuable of my life. By breaking down the walls of silence that existed between us, I have come to understand my mom and myself in ways I never imagined.
I know now that it’s never too late to change the relationship you have with someone important in your life: a parent, a child, a lover, a friend. All it takes is a willingness to be honest and to shed your old skin, to let go of the longstanding assumptions and slights you still cling to.”
I hope this book, or even just the idea of it, will encourage you to think about your own relationships and perhaps help you start a new kind of conversation with someone you love.
After all, if not now, when?
“Billee’s ‘Famous’ Foods”
Gramma Billee kept a jar for bacon drippings on her stove; she used it liberally and kept it full. She knew everyone’s favorite foods and provided them—often.
Gramma Billee kept a jar for bacon drippings on her stove; she used it liberally and kept it full. But one of the most important ingredients she cooked with was intention: She knew everyone’s favorite foods and provided them. Often. Decades later, her granddaughter shares remembrance and recipes so that Billee’s descendants may nourish their own families with her “famous” foods.
As I have written about before, tastes conjure memories in a most primal way, and can transport us right back to our childhood kitchens. As such, they are excellent jumping-off points for writing or talking about your memories and crafting them into a story for generations to come (not to mention, the kids will be thrilled to have those cherished recipes actually written down).
In this latest contribution in our series, A Taste of the Past, we are treated to one family’s “famous” foods, as skillfully and lovingly prepared by Gramma Billee—and now, her descendants.
A Taste of the Past
Gramma Billee, the writer's baby brother, and the writer as a little girl, 1982
Billee’s “Famous” Foods
By Melissa Finlay
I visited my grandmother Billee in person for the last time when she was 90 years old. I spent several days interviewing her, recording her memories and anything else she wanted to leave for posterity. She told me plenty of stories about her life and details about our ancestry, but she most wanted me to record her recipes, to pass her food legacy on to her grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Her recipes were close to her heart, full of memories of friends and family, and preciously held knowledge of who loved which food the most.
Stories of struggle, and hope
While I recorded her recipes, I was the fortunate recipient of my grandmother’s stories, as each dish sparked memories anew.
Billee’s dishes were famous among everyone who knew her. Her recipes came to be referred to as “Billee’s Famous Enchiladas,” “Billee’s Famous Cherry Pie,” “Billee’s Famous Hummingbird Cake,” even “Billee’s Famous Hot Cocoa.” Not that her dishes were necessarily original—she liked to collect recipes from newspapers, magazines, and friends—it’s just that she made them so well, and shared them so generously. She cooked for family get-togethers. She brought overflowing platters to church potlucks and work parties (I think they may have held extra work parties to score more of her foods!). Billee knew everyone’s food favorites, and provided them.
Her life wasn’t always full of ample food, though. During the Great Depression, Billee’s father struggled to find work and her mother suffered from serious health problems. Billee’s maternal grandparents stepped in to help the family get through these lean years.
Billee recalled walking with her younger sister to their grandparents’ corner grocery store each morning on the way to school. Her grandmother gave them each a “store lunch” to take with them. After school, Billee returned to the store to work for a few hours to repay her grandparents’ generosity.
Billee’s own young family moved from Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, to Lake Jackson, Texas, on the Gulf of Mexico, in the mid-1950s. Here she learned how to cook with seafood, not as a premium ingredient but as an affordable protein to feed her growing children. When Billee was widowed at 47, she struggled financially while training to enter the workforce. She did her best to nourish herself and her youngest son during this difficult time.
A granddaughter’s perspective
By the time I came on the scene, Gramma Billee had a steady career and an active social life. She was constantly in the kitchen. As I watched her cook, I asked her plenty of questions. She answered every one, but never invited me to pitch in; she did the gourmet cooking and baking herself. She was the master! Cinnamon rolls filled with pecans and raisins. Shrimp quiche. Stuffed mushrooms. Tender brisket. Squash casserole. Molasses cookies. Pie, pie, and more pie.
When I was a child, her dishes always seemed luxurious to me—indulgent even. She used copious amounts of seafood, avocados, cream, pecans, butter, and shortening, ingredients not commonly used at my home. Billee kept a jar for bacon drippings on her stove; she used it liberally and kept it full. Dessert was a standard course on her menus. Yet, for all her decadent cooking, she always watched her own portions and remained slender throughout her life.
Gramma Billee introduced me to many new southern foods. I knew if Gramma made it, it would be delicious, so I tried every strange new thing she offered me. I loved so many! Billee made the only liver and venison I would ever eat, the texture and flavor superb with bacon and onions. Shrimp Victoria became a favorite with tender, succulent shrimp swimming in a rich sour cream gravy. Gramma knew it was my favorite, and made it for me often. I enjoyed the crunchy, salty bites of her fried okra. I can still recall the smells of apricot fried pies bubbling in the cast iron skillet. Nothing, however, could tempt my sweet tooth more than Billee's sweet-tart cherry pie.
I have begun to record the recipes for many of grandmother Billee’s “famous” offerings, transcribing her hand-written (often butter-stained) notes for other members of the extended family. So that her grandchildren and great-grandchildren can choose a favorite dish. So they can make it often and think of her. So her nourishing legacy can live on.
Recipes from Billee’s repertoire
I will start by sharing my favorite dishes that she made “just for me” every time I visited. These dishes still bring me the comfort of being with my gramma every time I eat them.
An array of Billee’s handwritten recipes—well-loved and well-used, all!
Shrimp Victoria
1 pound shrimp, peeled and de-veined
½ pound mushrooms, cleaned and sliced
1 onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
½ cube of real butter
1 tub of sour cream
Salt, to taste
Red pepper, to taste
Sauté onion and garlic in butter until softened. Add mushrooms and spices and sauté until soft. Add shrimp and sauté until just pink. Take off the heat and stir in half the sour cream. When dished up over a hot bed of rice or egg noodles, top with a dollop of sour cream. Serve with a salad and a nice loaf of French bread.
Orange-Avocado Salad
1 medium head lettuce, torn, about 6 cups
1 small cucumber, thinly sliced
1 avocado, peeled and sliced
One 11-oz. can mandarin oranges
2 tablespoons sliced green onions
In large salad bowl, combine lettuce, cucumber, avocado, oranges, and onion. Just before serving, pour on dressing and toss.
For dressing:
½ teaspoon grated orange peel
¼ cup orange juice
½ cup salad oil
2 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
1 tablespoons lemon juice
¼ teaspoon salt
Combine all ingredients in screw-top jar. Cover tightly and shake well.
Cherry Pie
1 can unsweetened cherries
2 tablespoons tapioca
¼ teaspoon almond extract
Mix above ingredients and let rest while making pie crust.
For easy pie crust (makes two crusts, top and bottom):
1 cube oleo, melted (Gramma’s name for shortening)
1 cup + 2 tablespoons flour
2 tablespoons sugar
Mix ingredients until they form a soft ball. Roll, and form half in pie plate.
Pour cherry filling into unbaked pie shell. Sprinkle filling with 1 cup sugar, generous dots of butter. Place top crust over filling. Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes.
Melissa Finlay is an avid genealogist, a garden guru, a homeschooler, mama to 7, and wife to the love of her happily-ever-after. She and her husband recently created an app, Little Family Tree, to introduce children to their family history.
“Mom’s Spaghetti and Meatballs”
Red sauce ran in her grandmother's blood, and every family member would one day memorize her beloved recipe. Peek into a family kitchen, and a mother's heart.
Red sauce may have run in her grandmother's blood, but every member of the family would come to know the recipe by heart (even if the size of a "pinch" of this and a "dash" of that differed depending on who was making it)...
Smells—in this case, of garlic and oregano—and tastes conjure memories in a most primal way, and can transport us right back to our childhood kitchens. As such, they are excellent jumping-off points for writing or talking about your memories and crafting them into a story for generations to come (not to mention, the kids will be thrilled to have those cherished recipes actually written down).
In this second contribution in our series, A Taste of the Past, a family passes down the secrets to their own version of spaghetti and meatballs, never writing down a recipe, but always cooking with love and remembrance. Join me in raising a glass (red wine, of course) in honor of Kaitlin Ahern's shared food memory. Cin cin!
A Taste of the Past
The family behind the red sauce: the writer’s mom, Darice, in her mid-twenties, with her parents, Martin and Veronica Smith. Circa 1975
Mom's Spaghetti & Meatballs
By Kaitlin Ahern
I have few memories from childhood more vivid than watching my mother cook dinner. The sight of her standing at the stove in our small kitchen, wooden spoon in one hand and glass of wine in the other, creating a meal for our family of four, is easier to conjure than what I had for breakfast yesterday. And although she passed away when I was barely 17, I’m lucky enough to know many of her recipes by heart.
Mom was the dinner-maker in our household, a task she loved or lamented, usually depending on how stressful the workday had been. She was happiest to cook on weekends, when the hustle of work, sports practice, and homework died down and she could take her time with a meal. That’s when she’d make spaghetti and meatballs—a staple she made so often that she could have made it in her sleep; now I can, too.
I think she loved that meal so much because the two key ingredients tied back to her roots. It all started, of course, with the sauce. Mom’s mom, my grandmother Veronica, was 100 percent Italian; red sauce ran in her blood. When I picture our kitchen from my childhood, I see a pot of sauce simmering on the stove, filling the downstairs with the delicious scents of garlic and Italian spices. The mixture of crushed tomatoes, onion, garlic, basil (fresh from the garden when we could get it), oregano, olive oil, and salt would cook slowly for several hours, covered except when one of us peeked open the lid to scoop up a taste with a piece of crusty bread. The recipe was never written down, to my knowledge, but each member of our family knew it by heart—although the size of the “pinch” or “dash” of this and that was different depending on who was making it.
The other ingredient was ground beef for the meatballs. Our family has always made all-beef meatballs, despite the Italian tradition to mix beef and pork. The preference was really born out of convenience—Mom’s dad was a beef farmer, and he passed that passion down to his oldest son, who still supplies our growing family with grass-fed steak, ground beef, and stew meat. Mom would combine the pound or so of Uncle Marty’s beef with one egg, a splash of milk, parsley, and just enough breadcrumbs to hold it all together, but she always let the flavor of the meat be the star—a small way of showing how proud she was of her big brother’s hard work. After browning the meatballs in olive oil, she’d cover them with the sauce and let them simmer away for an hour or so, or until we were ready to eat. Leftover sauce (if there was any) was tossed in the fridge and saved for Friday night, when Dad would make pizza.
Mom never went as far as making her own spaghetti, so that part of the meal came from a box. But she’d always make a big salad tossed in a homemade Italian dressing with olive oil, vinegar, garlic salt, and dried basil and oregano.
“I didn’t fully realize the gift my mother had given me by teaching me her recipes until I moved out of my childhood home.”
I didn’t fully realize the gift my mother had given me by teaching me her recipes until I moved out of my childhood home. Her spaghetti sauce comforted me when I was far from home studying in London, and I basically lived on salads with her homemade dressing when I was just starting out in New York City after college and could afford little else.
I miss her terribly. But when I’m in the kitchen, tunes cranked up, simmering a pot of red sauce on the stove and making meatballs with Uncle Marty’s grass-fed beef, a glass of wine in one hand and a wooden spoon in the other, I know she’s there with me, as present as the smell of garlic in the air and the recipe in my heart.
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Kaitlin Ahern is a writer and editor who grew up riding horses and now rides the New York City subway. She enjoys running, traveling, cooking, and all things animals, because you know what they say about taking the girl out of the country. You can follow her on Instagram.