Are You Truly A Caretaker For Your Research?

During yesterday's Scanfest, while we scan and chat via instant messenger, many topics are raised, from the mundane ("did you have a pet rock and a mood ring in the 70s") to more serious topics.  Topics such as: what happens to your genealogy research once you are no longer on this Earth and become an ancestor?  Have you made plans for someone to take over your research?

After some great ideas, Sheri Fenley of The Educated Genealogist posted on this topic and has included sample "genealogical codicil" text to be used during estate planning.

If you haven't already done so, please take time to ponder this topic seriously.  When I completed my estate planning this past summer, I had a provision in my will stating that if specific people in my family did not want to care for my research, that it was to be left with one or more historical societies.

Just like any other "asset" for which you currently care, you should consider bequeathing your research so that it can be continued years from now and not be just another "lost" body of knowledge.

Death Doesn't Take A Holiday

[Author's note: This post was originally done on November 29, 2007 but has been repackaged for the Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories - Day 20 - Christmas and Deceased Relatives.]

Funny how you sit down to write about one topic and then it is taken over by another that is more important. This one started out about wills and estate planning, then and now. I'll save that topic for a later date. Today I had to "stop for Death" as Emily Dickinson once wrote. He was too important to ignore.

I am sitting here ready to post after a rough day but one that has really emphasized to me the "cycle of life." While I'm all hopped up and ready for the holidays, Christmas trees, baking, seeing friends and family, at the same time I am dealing with loss and death on many different levels. Death doesn't take a holiday. But if it does, some years it seems like my family is its prime vacation spot.

Yesterday, while I was in the middle of writing out my estate planning details, I received news that one of my partner's aunts was declining quickly. She had been quite ill for months and at a stage where hospice care was brought in to care for her last days at home. And then the call came about 5:30 pm that she had passed on. Her sister had just passed away during this year's Easter holiday.

This post is not about death but more about remembrance and ways we can embrace and cherish those memories. This post is really more about pausing and recognizing the cycles of life and how they seem most evident when a death occurs around a holiday such as Easter or Christmas.

Death amid a time of joy tells me that death is just a part of nature, it is part of what should be expected but is not always anticipated, it gives meaning to holidays and to life. If we had no sorrow, no loss, no death, we'd have no touchstones with which to measure our joy. Joy would be a constant, a flat line with no spikes and simply rendered a non-emotion.

But why do our losses seem more obvious when we should be filled with the holiday spirit? I know that last week's holiday was rough for those of us with recent losses and not so recent losses. Holidays emphasize togetherness and family for many of us, and the absence of a loved one during this time seems more intense, and the separation more vivid and painful.

I caught myself on Thanksgiving Day wanting to call Mom and ask if she watched the Macy's parade while she was stuffing the turkey. This was our ritual, our nod to continuity from year to year, something she and I shared. With phone in hand, I started to dial and then I remembered: she wasn't home stuffing a turkey or over at one of her sister's houses. She was in the nursing home this year. Maybe she was watching the parade, but the Alzheimer's would make sure she couldn't remember it even 15 seconds later.

So, I paused and put down the phone. I put my hands back in the bowl of stuffing. And I remembered for her. I remembered holidays, turkeys, and parades. I remembered learning how to make this exact dish that I am literally up to my elbows in. And I cried. And then I laughed because how can you wipe a tear when your hands are practically breaded and battered?

Sure, a cycle ended when I couldn't experience that holiday tradition this year. But cycles that seem to halt their movement - frozen in time - allow new cycles to begin. I now make stuffing with my own family in Chicago. I now call Mom on holidays and try to help her remember.

There will be many tears shed by me this holiday season. And that's not a bad thing, really. The tears tell me that a memory had meaning, that loss is real, that a loved one was important, that death hurts, that a ritual was worth repeating even to the point of aggravation, that there will be new tradtions in the years to come, and that more loved ones will all too soon be missing at the table.

That piece of a life is gone, and it isn't ever coming back. Choose to chase after it, blindly follow its path, and forget the life and rituals going on right now around you. Or choose to embrace its memory, wrap it around you like a colorful and warm Mom-made afghan, and make it live by telling it to others in your family.

This is what we do. We are family historians. We engage in The Telling. In a way, we bring life to the dead and memories to the living.

Photo: grave of my great-grandparents, John Ralph Austin and Therese McGinnes Austin. Grahamsville Rural Cemetery, Grahamsville, New York. My great-grandfather died two days after Easter, 1988.

Estate Planning, Wills and Family History

I need to pat myself on the back here - I've tackled a nagging task hanging over my head all year now. Just like backing up my genealogy database, copying scanned photos to CDs, or labeling photos. I completed my estate planning details. Estate planning is not fun to think about and worse to actually do.

Some friendly advice, especially to those who are not currently married but share a life with someone close to their heart: estate planning is even more important since basic laws of inheritance don't cover these types of relationships. While we may get along with our special someone's family, I can tell you first hand that once a death occurs, families get weird. Unless it is written down, things and wishes promised to you verbally will be handled the way the family and/or probate court see fit.

While I was preparing my "departure plan" as I call it, I thought of my ancestors who left wills and other estate documents as part of their legacy. These documents not only served to convey money and property to spouses and family members left behind but years, even centuries later, they provided details of their lives.

As I get older, I become less attached to materials things, except for those that have great sentimental and family history value. Besides designating how I want my assets to be dispersed and my funeral arrangements handled, just as important to me is deciding who gets all my research materials.

I am in a quandry now since out of 200+ living relatives (I'm not kidding - we're Irish - this is what we do - we have large families) I really can't identify one person who would want to take this project over. Granted, I have plenty of time and as the current generation (born after 2000 - ugh!) gets older I hope that someone will not just be interested in my research, but will want to act as a custodian of the materials and the concept.

My hope is that my niece, Jacqueline Rose and/or my nephew, Patrick Thomas will want to take over the research. But just in case, I've added a provision that directs my executor to locate a historical or family history society willing to archive the materials. My preference is for a group based in either Lewis or Saint Lawrence counties in way upstate New York since that is where my family spent most of the 19th century.

In preparation for that transfer, I am being a good boy - labeling photos, backing up data, etc. I have even printed out information on heirlooms such as my great-great grandmother Catherine O'Keefe Austin's wedding silver and tucked it in the chest holding the set made in 1882. I've done the same for my great-grandmother Therese McGinnes Austin's Floradora doll from the late 1890s.

I know I can only control so much and that I can't take it with me. But do I really want to leave it up to my family to guess and say "what would Thomas do?"

Photo: my niece, Jacqueline Rose, in 2001