To feel a bit sad to realise I am the keeper of most/all of this information?

[grenlei]

When I was a child my mum would talk to me all the time about her childhood, her extended family, life in post war London, and then growing up in the 1950s-60s. I was blessed with a good memory (got me through school and uni with minimal effort!) so even now many years on can remember a lot of this.

My mum sadly died over 20 years ago when I was 21; of her siblings, only 3 (in their 70s/80s) are still alive, and 2 of those didn't have any children. I'm an only child; my cousins have little or no knowledge of our family history, and even my mum's siblings don't remember half the stuff I do. At a recent family gathering one family member was asking some family questions that I was able to answer, but others I couldn't (although I know my mum would have been able to).

It just makes me sad that it's all going to be lost. There's nothing massively earth shattering, it's just life and memories, connections to big events - a relative was at the Battle of Cable St for example, but my children are not interested at all (I've always loved history so a bit different for me) and no one else seems to be either.

I guess it's the case for all families sooner or later so I probably am BU!

[Mustreadabook]

My mum researched family history for years and wrote it all down then produced photo books with the stories and info and old pictures. A set for each grandchild. I’m so glad she wrote it down.

[Illdealwithitinaminute]

I think writing it down is a great idea.

What I would say though is that you might have to accept your immediate family aren't that interested. I am not very big into family history and sometimes those who are get cross with those who are not. Luckily in our family there's one cousin who is, and others who have done an extensive family tree, but the majority just live in the day and aren't that into stuff.

It's sad, though, I think it's part of grieving to have to accept that you know tonnes and tonnes of stuff about that person, and their lives mattered so much to you, and you have all their possessions, but ultimately it will all just get swept away by the sands of time. I find it difficult to accept that sometimes, as if the person didn't matter somehow, and I find it hard to throw away their stuff for that reason.

[Benjispruce2]

Write it down. Or record it. I know from experience information dies with that person. Ancestry.com?

[Benjispruce2]

As for children, they’re not interested now but I became interested when I was older.

[thinkingaboutLangCleg]

Write it down. Draw it, scrapbook it. Something - it’s history- real history as it was lived

I absolutely agree. And get it online if you can, eg on one of the family history or local history sites. This is gold dust for researchers, and will only become more useful as time passes.

[Illdealwithitinaminute]

It's great if it does spark your interest, I'm in my 50's, it's not really my thing. If you love it yourself, then that's a reason in itself to keep those memories.

[OllyBJolly]

I read an article about this company www.miigen.com/

Can't find the article - might not have been online. Looks like a start up from what is online about them so I'd tread carefully.

[SparklyBookcase]

By the way, if you put your family tree online, make sure you make a note of your passwords and tell relevant people where they can find them - no point having a family tree that no-one else knows exists or can access.

On a tangent, but just thought I’d share - out of the blue my DH received a letter from a genealogy company that a long lost (actually unknown to us) relative had passed away intestate and DH was one of those set to inherit. That has caused a lot of family tree action this week.

[Ninkanink]

@DonnaQuixotedelaManchester

Write it down. Draw it, scrapbook it. Something - it’s history- real history as it was lived. A university or museum of London department might be interested in but if nothing else you could put it up on a wordpress site for others to read or something. Don’t let the memories go!

Yes. Write it down. I got my grandmother a lovely notebook/journal some years ago and asked her to write the story of her and my grandfather’s lives in it. She wrote quite a lot in it, starting with her childhood, school years, first job, turning down a proposal, meeting my grandfather, moving abroad together, coming home again and going right up to their family life with my mum and uncles when they were young. It was a fascinating to read it after she had died and to have that record. My mum still has the book (it will come to me at some point).

You could also record yourself telling the stories to keep as a verbal record.

[lemartin]

My partner recently got an email from his uncle that has ALL of his family history on and we got a bottle of wine and sat for hours looking through it and discovering stuff, next time we visited his uncle who sent it to him we did the same.

My dad is also huge on history and I make a point to be interested in it. I'm sorry if your kids aren't interested right now, but as they mature they will be. Definitely keep it written somewhere in a scrap book. It will be treasured one day.

[KisstheTeapot14]

Shame we can't have a MN history section. I love the stories of everyday people. It is my favourite kind of history. I got given some of the Nella Last books - look her up!

Local museum or library might point you to where you could store these or family history sites.

It's our common history, especially for women - deserves a voice.

[ButteryPuffin]

There really should be some sort of national repository for family stories like this. Like Mass Observation but told in retrospect rather than day to day diaries.

[StCharlotte]

I'm much the same and I don't even have children!

Although I'm part of a big family so hopefully the siblings and cousins can patch the stories together between them in case I'm ever abducted by aliens!

Also my mum wrote a very long article about her wartime fun experiences which passed is down from grandchild to grandchild which is nice.

At the most recent family funeral (a paternal aunt), my brother conducted a Q&A with her remaining sibling. It was lovely

[Angel2702]

This is why I do family history. To save the little stories that give people a personality rather than just dates of birth death and marriage.

I’m so glad I got into it at age 11 so I was able to ask questions and write down stories from older relatives that nobody had ever thought to ask.

[BestIsWest]

KisstheTeapot There is a MN Family history section.

[SallySeven]

I agree with writing it down.

And that women's stories are rarer and should be recorded.

[Bubbaella]

Definitely write it all down.

I looked after my Gran in the last few years of her life, after she was diagnosed with dementia. The first few weeks she was diagnosed (before her memory completely went) she told me so many things from her childhood and stories of how many weeks it took them to reach the UK from Kenya in the 60s. She was born in 1927 and my grandad in 1917 so they had both seen a lot and had lived in several different countries. I did a video diary of some stories and the rest I wrote a diary which I emailed to all of my cousins, aunts and uncles. Everyone was so happy and there were stories in there that some didn’t know or had forgotten about. She was the last one left, on my dads side, of her generation so I wanted to preserve all that history.

I’m now in the process of doing the same with my Nan who is 92. I want to try and get as much family history as I can, while I still have time.

[ShinyMe]

Similar story here op. I'm an only child with no children, my 1 cousin on mum's side isn't interested. My mum and her mum told me so many stories growing up about their grannies and aunties that I kept forgetting that I never actually knew these people. We had "the aunties" who were my grandmother's mother's sisters, and I feel as though I know them, even though the last one died before I was born. As the only girl (well, the only descendant really) I've accumulated engagement rings and books and vases and photos and bits of lace, tablecloths, crockery etc that belonged to "the aunties" along with all the stories and memories. It makes me sad that there is nobody who'll care or remember once my mum and I have gone.

Before my granny died I made her a cheesy book with photos and stories of the family, with some family history research and so on. She loved it, but now it's another bit of clutter in my house....

[mateysmum]

It sounds like you have an interesting family story tell.Every "ordinary" family has tales/secrets/anecdotes.

If you want to fact check some of what you know, there is so much online and your local archive can be really helpful.

I've been doing family history for years and have written it up and sent copies to family members. It's amazing how interested people are and what memories suddenly emerge. I'm now in touch with distant relatives whose stories join up with mine.

You know how on Who Do you think you Are, celebs tear up about long ago events? That's happened to me - when you read a mother's account of a child's death or the surprise when you read about the skeletons in the cupboard of supposedly respectable relatives. However long ago they died they live again through the stories.

It's a deep rabbit hole but one well worth exploring!

[grenlei]

The only memento I have from my nanna ,(mum's mum) is her primary school hymn book. She was born in 1911, this dates from about 1916-17, and she's written an Anglicised version of her name in it because it was wartime and having a 'foreign' name wasn't great.

I've kept it since I was 10 (when my grandad died, nanna passed away when I was 7) I was always interested in history stuff I guess.

What I'd never thought about was why she'd kept it. My grandparents had no money, very few possessions, but she'd kept that all her life.

[Emilyontmoor]

There are certainly projects who want to hear such stories as well as academics who are studying those events. Try looking at who has written books on Cable street or at local museums, Imperial War Museum. These accounts are the primary sources historians need.


Ancestry.com and similar sites whilst useful for researching recorded genealogy are now essentially data trading organisations. People actually pay to give them their DNA (for what is essentially DNA astrology, you do not get scientifically robust information on your ancestry beyond a couple of generations), and other genealogical information which they then sell on. Ancestry didn't just sell for $7bn because it provides a family history service medcitynews.com/2020/08/blackstones-4-7b-acquisition-of-ancestry-raises-privacy-questions/

There are real issues with giving these companies any data www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/feb/16/dna-hugely-valuable-health-tech-privacy

[grenlei]

I did some research on my grandparents; I knew my grandad was one of 5 boys and had a sister who died as a baby. From records I found out there were actually 9 or 10 children but only 5 survived to adulthood, the others died at a few months except for his sister who died aged 3.

I felt very sad thinking about those poor babies. Deaths in childhood were so common then only just over 100 years ago

[OpenlyGayExOlympicFencer]

Why should it be lost? Easier than ever now to record things and share them with potentially interested people. Write it down or record yourself talking and share it online, start a blog, add it to Facebook local history pages.

[Bracknellite]

May I ask you to write about the battle of Cable Street on her?

My DD and I are fascinated with that event (and with smashing Fascists)

[Justaboy]

I felt very sad thinking about those poor babies. Deaths in childhood were so common then only just over 100 years ago

Yes they were, and a lot of deaths have been prevented by Vaccination it makes my blood boil when I hear anti-vaxers on the moan!