Passing It On

What would your ancestors think about your stuff?

Quick now, take a look around you. How many things do you own that are 10 years old? 20 years old? Older? If you’re like me, the answers are a few, not many, even fewer.

Now think about your grandparents and their possessions. Your answers to the same questions are probably much different.

Lori Thornton at Smoky Mountain Historian got me thinking about our changing consumption habits with her post on how she had to replace a perfectly good scanner because her new computer operating system couldn’t use it. Giles Slade’s observations in this Christian Science Monitor article show how cutting-edge, innovative Apple uses planned obsolescence to stimulate sales of its phenomenally successful iPod.

And while I knew that young folks have largely abandoned reading print newspapers, I had no idea that teens were similarly abandoning wristwatches, presumably because digital clocks are built into virtually everything electronic these days.

Without getting too far off topic here, our consumer society simply can’t continue on this unsustainable path of planned obsolescence. Our landfills are filling fast with the toxic remains of discarded PCs, cell phones and portable music devices with millions of soon-to-be-antiquated analog TVs waiting in the wings.

The pace of American consumption, which has quickened at an exponential rate since World War II, will likely be suppressed by economic and environmental realities in the not-so-distant future. Our descendants may find consumer habits of the past 60 years or so bewildering. Are you tracking the change for them?

As you write your own family history, consider seriously how your ancestors influenced your own buying habits. Write, too, of what you hope your own children and grandchildren have learned from yours.

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 of  Colorado landfill courtesy of Jason Kosena.

What did you have for breakfast on April 4, 1996?

What if you could record every moment of your life in a searchable digital file? It may soon be possible.

If Microsoft’s MyLifeBits Project seems a bit Orwellian to you, consider that it has its roots in the 1945 vision of Vannevar Bush who envisioned a desktop “device in which an individual stores all his books, records, and communications, and which is mechanized so that it may be consulted with exceeding speed and flexibility.”

Bush called his dream contraption a “memex.” Today you might call it a PC.

Microsoft is taking a two-pronged approach to realizing Bush’s vision – investigating lifelong storage on the one hand while developing appropriate software on the other. For the past decade, Microsoft researcher Gordon Bell has been putting the concept to the test, creating an ever-expanding digital record of his life.

Stefani Twyford, a videographer and blogging friend from Houston, Texas, brought the project to my attention while raising the question: Is this really a good idea? My short answer is “I don’t think so.” You can find my long answer in the comments section of Stefani’s blog.

What do you think? Would such a comprehensive digital record be of value or interest to your descendants?

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.

Gordon Bell on cover of Fast Company magazine courtesy of brewbooks.

How has technology affected your family history?

When my maternal grandparents wed and headed to America in 1920, it was a huge leap of faith that they would find whatever it was that they were seeking and apparently couldn’t find in their native Denmark.

Sadly, I’ll never know precisely what it was that they were seeking, but they must have found it. They never spoke of any misgivings to me, and they remained here the rest of their lives.

While the cultural and social changes they went through in their lifetimes were huge, indeed, they shared in the major technological shifts that engulfed this country as well. They arrived two years before commercial radio was available in America, but by the time my grandfather died more than six decades later, he was fond of listening to Danish radio on his shortwave radio, often singing along to the music of his youth and sometimes taping his sessions, a decision his descendants are eternally grateful for.

He truly appreciated the new and wondrous technologies his adopted country afforded him, an appreciation that is sometimes overlooked in our fast-moving modern age.

I was reminded of this over Thanksgiving as I filled my fanny pack for a trip to celebrate the holiday with relatives in Omaha. The fanny pack itself is decidedly low-tech, something I picked up for free at an Iowa State Fair a few years ago. But consider what fits inside the pouch that is barely noticeable (to me) when I wear it. In the picture with this post, these items are (from left):
    • A digital camera (actually, a photo of a digital camera since the actual camera was in service at the time), capable of storing more than 400 high-quality color images.
    • My 80G iPod Classic, capable of storing up to 20,000 songs, or roughly 1,600 vinyl LPs.
    • My cell phone that keeps me connected to the world, including my sons in England and California, whom I can call from just about anywhere, and for far less cost than I could call someone 20 miles away 40 years ago.
    • My digital recorder, which is cable of recording several hours at the flip of a switch.

I’ve acquired each of these things in the past year and newer versions of each are already available. Many of us take these things for granted, but changes in technology also affect how families behave and interact with each other. Take this into account when you preserve your own family histories.

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.