Bookmarks open doors to future and past

We’re all familiar with bookmarks. Bookmarks serve as reminders of where we’ve been and where we want to return to.

Without electronic bookmarks, we’d be adrift in cyberspace, clicking frantically as we try to navigate our way through the often-bewildering web while searching for the path to our intended destinations.

But this post by Shelly Kneupper Tucker points out that bookmarks used in actual books can actually serve a deeper purpose: they serve as markers to our peripheral pasts as well.

As Shelly notes, people use all manner of objects in their bookmarking – recipes, utility bills, love notes, toilet paper, even money. Most of us just grab what’s close at hand and stick it in the book. Others take their bookmarking more seriously.

Perhaps you’ve found strange items in hand-me-down books in your own family. Read the comments on Shelly’s post for further elaborations on readers’ book discoveries. What we find tucked between the pages of a book often provide clues to our family’s past. The same holds true for those hand-written notes in the margins. Check your library today.

Have you ever wondered if anyone alive today has met a person who was born in the 18th century? Megan Smolenyak Smolenyak at Ancestry magazine has. Think about it. The elder person is this equation would have to have been born in 1800 or earlier, 207 years ago. That’s quite a span. To read about Megan’s fascinating search, go here.

Larry Lehmer is a personal biographer who helps people preserve their family histories. To learn more, visit his web site or e-mail him.

  Flickr photo courtesy of  PIß.

Comments

[This Eclectic Life]

Hey, Larry. Thank you for the mention! I want that bookmark at the top of your page. It's much better than toilet paper! I appreciate your kind mention (but you said it better than I did).

[Larry Lehmer]

Thanks for the inspiration, Shelly. I'm still looking for that stash of cash hidden in my collection. But I fear it may have been tossed with the Bobbsey Twins. Drat!