Passing It On

Family history isn’t just for old people

When I give presentations to church groups or at retirement communities, I’m one of the youngest people in the room. But researching family history didn’t get to be the second-most popular hobby in the United States by appealing only to senior citizens.

The powerful desire to know one’s family history often begins at an early age, most frequently because of the death of a close relative or through a school assignment to interview and write about a family elder.

Elyse Doerflinger got the bug when she was 12 or 13. Now 20 years old and a California college student, Elyse writes a genealogy blog and posts helpful videos on YouTube.  She’s also one of my Facebook friends. When I asked her for her thoughts about researching family history, here is what she said:

“It all started with my aunt when I was 12 or 13.  She had discovered Ancestry.com and … I thought the facts she told me were so interesting. … Then, during a trip to Tennessee to visit my grandpa for the summer, I discovered so much about my family that I became permanently hooked.  Everyone was telling me stories and giving me information. 

“Being out there, in the rural Appalachian mountains was nice because I learned so much about American history as well as my own history.  Pretty soon I was asking for a filing cabinet to store all of my papers and I started asking for Family Tree Maker software for my birthday and Christmas...I can definitely say that it certainly made me an odd teenager when it comes to that.  Every since - I've been heavily hooked and I never plan on dropping the habit.

“I think researching your family history is extremely important.  It gives you a sense of who you are and where you come from.  Plus, it is nice to be able to connect people in your family tree to history.  Like, I can honestly say that I have an ancestor in the civil war and that I have ancestors that served in both World Wars.  Its honestly an addiction - once you start it takes you over.”

Elyse’s family is lucky to have her around. Most families benefit from a member who serves as family historian. If you have one in your family, give them a hand. Your whole family will benefit.

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

Photo: Elyse Doerflinger

My novel cure for "The 161 Meme"

Uh-oh. I’ve been tagged with “The 161 Meme.”

For those of you unfamiliar with the term, think of a meme as a chain letter. Someone poses a question to five bloggers, who respond with a post or comment before tagging five more bloggers with the same question. And on and on. I was tagged by Terry Thornton at Hill Country of Monroe County, Mississippi.

For this meme, I’m to check page 161 of the book I am currently reading, find the sixth sentence on the page and post it. For me, the book is “The Widow of the South” by Robert Hicks. It’s rare that I read fiction, but Hicks inspired me to read his novel after I heard him speak recently at the 2007 Conference of the Association of Personal Historians.

The sixth sentence on page 161 reads: “During the battle he must have been shot in the head, grazed probably, but you can lose a whole lot of blood that way.” Since my actual reading is only at page 71, this is more or less a preview of things to come. I’m really enjoying the book, by the way, and Hicks’ attention to detail tells the story of the Civil War in terms that magnify the true horror of having a war fought in your own backyard.

Now it’s time to do some tagging of my own. My five choices are:

1. Christie Vilsack, the former first lady of Iowa. Christie has an interest in personal history and has created the Vilsack Foundation that promotes literacy, storytelling and community building, among other things.

2. Carla Offenburger. Carla is the wife of my former colleague Chuck Offenburger, who was blogging for years before the term became fashionable. Carla is a regular contributor to the family web site, including her popular column, “What’s Carla Reading?”

3. Marc Hansen. Think of Marc, a columnist at The Des Moines Register, as a professional blogger. A long-time friend, Marc is a must-read in my house. I hope he will at least post a comment on what he’s reading these days.

4. Kathleen Bell. One of my favorite bloggers, Kathleen blogs from New Bedford, Mass., where she writes about everything from her days as a child in the Philippines to her exploits as a busy mother of six. Oh yes, she’s also pursuing her masters in journalism from Harvard Extension.

5. Braudia. This is a family two-fer. My son, Bret, and his bride, Claudia, are blogging from their new home in Durham, England. They haven’t been there long, but I hope one of them has found time to dig into a good book.

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

Flickr photo courtesy of thomas ford memorial library.

Caffeinated, hyphen-ated and pixellated

I am soooo wired! I’ve been working hard this week to finish a couple of family history projects before taking off tomorrow for the annual conference of the Association of Personal Historians in Nashville.

Today I’m loading up my new iPod with great old music, stocking up on fresh batteries for my new digital camera, recharging my (relatively) new cell phone and readying my laptop for its first road trip.

To top it off, my good friend Sherry Borzo of dsmBuzz fame just posted a podcast interview with me where we talk about entrepreneurship, my family history business and my book about the last tour of Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens.

I’m feeling like an uber Digital Daddy as I prepare for my first APH conference after three years of membership. If all this electronic stuff works right, I plan to blog from the conference.

Just for fun. For 30 years or so, I had a mustache. After all that time, I shaved it off and nobody noticed. Now, it turns out, mustaches are blogworthy. Check this out.

Larry Lehmer is a personal historian who helps people preserve their family stores. To learn more, check out his web site or send him an e-mail.

Flickr photo courtesy of Kaija.

A little bit about a lot of things

The title of this post is an homage to a former colleague of mine, long-time Des Moines Register sports columnist Maury White. Maury would throw in a bits column about once a week in which he borrowed liberally from his sports columnist brethren around the country with short items he found interesting.

While Maury’s columns were very homespun, some might say corny, and included frequent references to Agro B. Arlo, an acquaintance, My Neighbor Walt, and actress Toby Wing, I’ll stick to a few items that I’ve found interesting lately. (By the way, who were some of your favorite newspaper people that you read while growing up?)

Did you know that Des Moines, Iowa, police officers have to buy their own guns? Lt. Todd Dykstra revealed that tidbit during a presentation I attended Thursday. (Do you have any peace officers in your family history? What stories did they tell?)

One of my favorite personal history bloggers is Terry Thornton. His enticing, well-written blog about life in the hill country of Monroe County, Mississippi, is a good example of southern storytelling. This retired university professor brings family history to life through its stories.

Have you ever wanted to buried in a coffin in the shape of a football shoe? How about in the fetal position in an egg-shaped coffin? Vic Fearn & Co. in England has a line of unusual coffins that you can check out here. Coffins have grown in size in recent years to accommodate the ever-increasing number of obese people in the world. The oversized coffins have created a cottage industry in crematorium refurbishment as older furnaces are not big enough to accept the larger coffins. Read this for an overview of the trend.

How common is your surname? Randy Seaver over at Genea-Musings has an explainer and link to a White Pages search engine that will tell you. It will also tell you the most common names in the U.S. and your state. For example, Smith is the most common surname in the entire U.S. but ranks fourth in California behind Garcia, Hernandez and Lopez.

Larry Lehmer is a personal historian who helps people preserve their family histories. To learn more, check out his web site or send him an e-mail.

Flickr photo of Toby Wing by faithxrudd.

Metaphorically speaking, this is what I do

I’ve been asked by Liz Strauss, through fellow Central Iowa Blogger Mike Sansone, to describe my blog in metaphorical terms. Intrigued by the offer, I have also come to the conclusion that it’s a very practical exercise as well.

To be honest, I’ve never been totally comfortable with the term “blogger.” For one thing, the term has little intrinsic value to anyone who came of age in the pre-Internet era. For another, the term conjures up images of little green frogs hopping on and off of rapidly moving cartoon logs in an early video game with a similar-sounding name.

But my biggest misgiving, I think, comes from the all-too-common belief that bloggers represent the marginalized fringes of our society, wackos with an ax to grind, a cause to promote or just some stream of consciousness drivel to dump into a largely apathetic cyberspace.

Of course, none of that describes what I’m trying to do here. The title of this blog (Passing It On) and the subtitle (“A site dedicated to preserving, celebrating and sharing family and personal history”) are accurate representations of my goals. Whether I achieve them or not is for you to decide, but I have found a metaphor that works for what I do: My blog is like a reunion.

After all, reunions are joyous occasions, where old friends or family gather and connect through their common past. Participants vary from reunion to reunion, fresh faces appear and old ones fade away but our stories and recollections bind us. We walk away with a better understanding of who we are, where we’ve been and what’s truly important to us. That’s what I try to do here.

You won’t get fried chicken, potato salad or be subjected to another round of Uncle Fred’s bad jokes but, if you close your eyes and concentrate real hard, you can almost smell it, taste it, hear it. I’d rather describe the experience of a family reunion than try to explain what a blog is.

Thanks Mike and Liz.

Flickr photo courtesy of  tmcmh.

This is a wheel. It's already been done.

 

Your life is unique. Throughout time, for all the billions of people who have dug their heels into this planet's bountiful soil, no one has been exactly like you. Or your family, for that matter.

But here's a news flash for you: You're not the first person to show an interest in preserving family history. Chances are, there's someone in your own family that's doing it right now. Researching family history is the No. 2 hobby in America, ranking right behind gardening and, according to some accounts, closing fast.

So, why not capitalize on all that interest by making your job a bit easier? As the saying goes, why re-invent the wheel? There are plenty of genealogy resources available on the Internet, many of them free. And there are hundreds of blogs on the topic.

Use your favorite search engine to find them, read them and learn from them. Here's one woman who's not afraid to admit she borrows ideas from others. We all do. That's called learning.

When you find a blog that you like (such as this one!), subscribe to it. It's simple. Details can be found in the column at the left on this site. Or you can check out this post on "search once and subscribe" by my blogging-coach friend Mike Sansone.

Then you can start preserving the unique details of your family history in a format you're comfortable with.

We'll be giving you a nudge throughout the month of May which is Personal History Month. Starting May 1, we'll be offering a free, month-long mini-course on how to write your own personal history.

Be here.

Flickr photo courtesy of Ana-Lin.