IT'S A FAMILY THING - HERITAGE

Wow!
How did I think I was all done with my PRESERVATION ideas when I didn't even present one of the most important PERSERVES of all?

The ANCESTOR preserve...

I was raised to pay careful attention to those who've "gone before" me.

Both my parents preserved many items from their lives, as well as inheriting their parent's preserves upon their passing.

For some reason, dabbling in genealogy, collecting (mostly by reproduction) pictures of my ancestors, recording their stories, visiting those that were still alive, etc. has always been very important to me.

I must have understood what it meant to come from all these people, and it intrigued me. 

The preservation of "all things ancestral" became my BIGGEST hobby.

I wonder if some of my passion for this type of thing came from having my Great-Grandmother (my mom's grandmother) live with us from the time I was 9 years old, until I was 21.   She was a wealth of childhood stories for us.  She was one of our all time favorite people.

We also had an aunt come live with us for about 15 years. The same time she came to live with us, her parents (my dad's folks) both moved into a nearby nursing home where I got a job taking care of my grandmother much of the time she was there.

I think having a lot of family around and also having a cousin who was a professional genealogist who taught me a lot about genealogy, made relationship PRESERVATION become very important to me.

I've spent a lot of time thinking about my ancestors and savoring the little bits of information we have about them.

So, aside from the genealogy preserves that I'm always working on, ie: names, dates, family information... I took the items, pictures, certificates, obituaries, etc from my ancestors as far back as I could find pictures and made an ANCESTOR PRESERVE with a section dedicated to each person.  I have pictures and information back as far as a third great-grandfather...PRICELESS!

So, even though this is getting a bit "wordy" I am still going to list items that you might consider searching for and gathering up, from whomever in your family might have these items and creating your own ANCESTOR PRESERVE.

(warning: some items may be specific to members of the LDS faith).

- Pictures! (the more details the better)

- Pedigree charts listing the ancestor first and going back as far as possible.

- Family charts, listing the ancestor first as a child in their parent's family, then as an adult and/or a parent in their own family.
- Recordings of their voices - during an interview, or during candid story telling...
- Copy of their birth certificate
- Copies of their ordinance certificates (if they were LDS): blessing, baptism, confirmation, priesthood ordinations, sealing
- Priesthood Lineage - Line of Authority (if male and LDS)
- Copy of Patriarchal Blessing
- Maps of their birth place - a picture of their childhood home?

- Picture(s) of their family (as a child), (as a parent)
- Copies of their writings - poetry, stories, journals, life story, talks/speeches,memoirs...

- Their Profession/business/career information, resume's, business card, pictures
- Schooling: elementary, high school, college, university, degrees received, copies of diplomas, licenses, awards..

- Military service: records, information, pictures

- News clippings, articles that they were in or wrote

- Awards (misc) received
- Sports played: pictures
- Community service they participated in
- Their Wedding: courtship information, pictures,

decoration details, honeymoon destination

- Samples of their handwriting

- Mementoes they kept and/or passed down

- Anniversary celebrations: pictures

- Obituary, newspaper
- Copy of death certificate
- Funeral/Memorial service: program, pictures

- Grave site / Headstone: pictures

- Thoughts and well-wishes from those who knew person

- Your own memories recorded and written about the ancestor included with their preserve.

- Anything else you can think of

If you end up with items that were belongings of ancestors that are now heirlooms, or just keep-sakes, consider tagging each item and writing a short description about the item, making and itemization list so as to keep the "story" of the item available for years, and generations to come.  (Refer to the post: "It's a Treasure Box for more details).