The Family Tree

April/May 2000

 

With Love:  Gifting Your Stories to the Future

Mike Paterson

 

            I apologize.  I simply got extremely busy.  I’m trying to do a full time doctorate at Glasgow University, pay the fees and pay the way.  This column was one of many things I temporarily put aside.

            But a number of you have been in touch, and I find myself reminded that things postponed too easily turn into regrets.  So, I offer you the following thoughts.

            The object of embarking on your With Love project is to create a link with your descendants: to make a collection of your stories, anecdotes and recollections, and produce master copies so that, photocopied onto the right materials and properly bound, they will reach across the centuries.  Your own anecdotes will become a vivid axis for any genealogical research you do, and open relationships with the descendants of your children’s children.

            As we’ve said, the best stories are about your everyday life; the ORDINARY things.  If you doubt that, imagine owning a collection of everyday recollections written by one of your own ancestors in the 17^th or 18^th century.

            Once you have some stories written in draft, the time comes to start making master copies.  Here are some tips:

            These are best done in black ink on standard size white paper; it gives you the best photocopy reproductions later.

            Don’t number the pages; when you make up copies as gifts, you may want to reorder items later.

            Leave EXTRA large margins.  I have seen books that have been through fires, and floods, that have been chewed by mice and eroded by age and climate; most of the damage is to the edges.  Valuable volumes can often be trimmed and re-bound.  Wide margins give your presentation copies a second chance, should the worst ever happen.

            Use a standard format and presentation, so all of the pages look like the same person’s work.  Make some rules before you start.  But include at least some handwritten pages and some illustrations.

            If you cut and past, use a glue that will not discolor, and use it sparingly.

            Include a few other documents:  copies of interesting letters, perhaps some recipes, a child’s drawing or two, photocopies of legal documents, citations and certificates, etc.  Be selective:  the stories are the vehicles of meaning.  Treat other material as garnish, to brighten the way your finished book looks and making it more inviting.

            Store master copies flat in a file box, away from light.  Handle them as little as possible.

            Your own recollections and writing about day-to-day experiences are the critical part of this whole project.  But, when you have written and are writing, turning a draft into a good-looking master copy will help you to believe that you’re on the way, that the small seeds you sow with a few hundred words about the day the washing machine flooded, or your first date, will eventually bear wonderful fruit.

            No matter how illustrious an ancestor, or how obscure, the opportunity to experience a few intimate moments of what was ‘ordinary’ in his or her life is an extraordinary thrill, reassuring as well as exciting.

            We are ancestors, illustrious or obscure, of the generations to come and, if we have handed on to them something of our experience, we will be some of the most interesting people they wish they’d known.