Remember The Descendants Blog Party Entry

For several months I have been interested in participating in a genealogy blog party that takes place on a monthly basis and this month I decided to jump in.  The original post and all the links of those that participate can be found HERE.  The question to answer in order to participate is:

Q: HOW WILL YOU PRESERVE YOUR FAMILY HISTORY RESEARCH FOR YOUR DESCENDANTS?

All family historians worry about what will happen to their data after they are no longer in control of it.   Here is what I intend to do.  

1)  There is a form at the Ohio Genealogical Society that allows a person to leave their genealogy collection to them.  I think other organziations also probably provide this same type of form.  Of course one has to be aware that they may not choose to keep everything.  I feel even if they have a huge bonfire with my treasures at least there is a chance that some of it will come to good use if I leave it all to an organization that specializes in family history.  Read more about donations of this sort HERE.  

2) Besides being in a data base on my lap top,  and backed up on my external hard drive, my tree is online a few places. And I will make a thumb drive of it at some point to hand to someone in the family.  I am not sure who in my family will take it if I try to give it to them.  

3) More important than my research,  I would like my ancestors to be remembered.   I have developed an interest in writing non fiction articles and fiction stories about my ancestors hoping that someone will find such a format more interesting than traditional family tree formats and traditional family history lineage books.  

4) I have a fascination with historical cook books.  The only book I have ever had aspirations to write is what I call a matriarchal cook book.  I want to have sections of the book that each feature various women in my ancestry with information about them,  about what their life would have been like,  followed by recipes that they either did hand down or else are historically accurate of what they might have prepared.  

5) I have always wanted to make the ancestors cards that I have seen described online.  I would want to make a regular playing deck with them instead of the baseball type collection cards.  Then as the family played cards they would see the various ancestors and maybe even read a bit about them.  My extended family are big card players so that might share my research to them in a way that incorporated their interest.   One idea of making ancestor cards can be found HERE.  

6) Along the same lines I have seen ideas of making home made board games with various themes and see no reason why one can't be created around one's ancestors.  That way even the kids can be exposed to some of the information.  For example a game one mom made up for her family is HERE.  My idea would be to create a board game more ancestry specific to one's particular family.  

I am sure there are many other ways to preserve research and I am really looking forward to the other blog posts that choose to participate in this month's blog party.