I come from a long line of storytellers. Most especially on my dad’s side of the family. I do know things about my mom’s side but my dad was always telling us stories about life growing up. There was the story of the airplane crash, the story about how he was goofing around with an axe and almost cut off his sisters finger and the story of when his step great-grandfather died at the farm. These are only a few of the stories; there were many a story told at the family dinner table.
One of the things that I’ve encouraged, OK, nagged my father to do is record those stories. Finally after several years he has taken the recorder I gave him and done just that. I know, a recorder you think .. but keep in mind that I said that this has taken a long time and since that time I’ve suggested that he take his smart phone and do it but he chose to do it with the recorder.
My idea was to take the recordings and put them together with pictures that I have and make a DVD that my dad can give as a Christmas present. Often I wonder how I get so busy but then I realized it’s because I want to do all these projects and I’m always thinking of new ones. But oh well, it keeps the mind active and I think that’s important.
Let me tell you about my mom. I say she wasn’t a story-teller but I guess she must have been. How else would I know that my great – great grandfather had a brewery and that he’d come to Canada to ask his son to help him with it. GGgrandfather left hat in hand because his son was a tea drinker and didn’t believe in “the drink”. Or was it just because he’d worked there as a child and there were rats and they just weren’t pleasant memories.
Over time I realized that I too have become a storyteller. After all, what is this blog, other than a way for me to get those stories out? Every time I meet someone new and they make the mistake (hehehe) of asking me what I do I get to tell them stories. Stories of how I got started in genealogy, things that I’ve found and places I’ve been lucky enough to get to.
We’re all storytellers, aren’t we? We post on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram; look at me this is what I’ve done. We just do it in different ways. One thing I would like to encourage people to do is write those stories or record those stories. I know your thinking, but who will care? But future generations will care; they will want to know who their grandmother or grandfather was, what was important to them.
After all, isn’t that why you got involved in family history?