Don't Let the Global Village Prevent You from Sharing Your Family History with Future Generations
By Michele R. Acosta
There was once a time when grandparents sat amidst a group ofwide-eyed grandchildren telling stories of days gone by. As theglobal village shrinks and families spread out across the nationand the world, the tradition of sharing family stories orally isin decline.
Oral tradition - passing stories by word of mouth - has been theprimary means of sharing family histories until the very recentpast. As families spread out across the globe, it is far lesslikely that multigenerational families will spend extended timetogether; however, just because the method of communication ischanging, does not mean that the global village will be thedeath of family history.
Despite the fact that extended families are more separated thanever, modern technology narrows the communication gap caused bydistance. As such, families do not have to be distant eventhough they live far apart.
The same holds true for sharing family histories. While familyhistories may not be shared at the dinner table as they oncewere, it does not mean that they can't be shared. The samemodern technology that allows families to stay close also allowsthem to communicate family histories from one generation to thenext. The only difference is the absence of the dinner table andthe means of communication.
Since the written word is a much more permanent - and accurate -method of preserving family history than dinner tableconversation, it is actually recommended that all families makean effort to preserve their family histories in written form.
In some cases, the stories will only hold significance for thefamily itself; however, in many cases, one family's history maybe representative of an entire town or era. Just as historiansand students today study Revolutionary or Civil War era lettersto learn about what life was like for regular people, one day,people will turn to our electronic transmissions to learn whatlife was like in the early 21st Century.
Those people who do not feel confident enough to write theirfamily histories themselves should seek out professional writersto ghost write for them. The most important thing is to get thestories in written form to preserve them for later generations,but some families may even choose to go a step further andself-publish their family histories in a nicely bound book.There are many self-publishing services that copy and bindbooks. Because of new print on demand technology, people canorder 10 copies or 1,000 copies. Some of these services evensell the books online, making it easy for family members andmembers of the community to obtain copies.
No matter how you choose to proceed, preserve your family'shistory in written form before the stories are lost to cominggenerations.
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