This was my reply to Cliff on the Dutchess List (meant to send it also to Otsego, but was sidetracked by other immediate tasks). I interpreted what he said not as a problem of preservation of actual materials, but preservation of family tales, memories and records. Cliff: What did you mean by genealogical tithing? [VBG] Jean 08 Mar 2004 Subject: [NYDUTCHE] Re: Genealogical Tithing Great idea, Cliff! Something we can all do, even if we don't consider ourselves writers. I've been a columnist for the Southern CA Geneal Society's excellent publication, The Searcher for the past four years and two years ago the Editor suggested I take over a limping Writers' Group. We now average 6- 8 people per meeting, and doing our own "genealogical tithing" has been a great experience for all. I'll share your phrase with them neato! I've collected lists of "memory joggers," and at almost every meeting, I pick one, or someone else may suggest one (a first date, a special pet, a recipe with a tale to go with it). Then we write for 20 minutes or so, and finally share our short 400500 word anecdotes or tales. They are always delightful and stimulate additional ideas and anecdotes to write about. There are many excellent books with good ideas, as well as Internet sources which show you how to get started. One good site is Virginia Allee's Family History Questionnaire <http://fcs.tamu.edu/aging/Family_History_Questionnaire.htm> and Kirk Polking's Writing Family Histories and Memoirs (Betterway Books, 1995) is also excellent. So folks, get it down on paper! Your descendants will love you for it. Jean Chapman Snow

What do you want to know about your ancestors? That is likely what your descendants will want to know about you and your times. Put in anything that you want your kids and grandkids to be able to know about you. I plan to use a camcorder and tell them about my life. Toward that end, I am compiling a timeline of my own life so that I can give a reasonably accurate and sequential account, hopefully so interesting that they will be willing to watch it. I believe they call it an oral history, but I am going one step further and doing it as a movie. How would you like to have such a movie of your great grandparents? What would you want to see there? I doubt that your kids will be any different. I hope that this answers your question. Cliff Hayes ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jean Snow" <snowstar@earthlink.net> To: <NYOTSEGO-L@rootsweb.com> Sent: Monday, March 15, 2004 2:36 PM Subject: [NYOTSEGO] Re Genealogical Tithing > This was my reply to Cliff on the Dutchess List (meant to send it also to > Otsego, but was sidetracked by other immediate tasks). I interpreted what > he said not as a problem of preservation of actual materials, but > preservation of family tales, memories and records. > Cliff: What did you mean by genealogical tithing? [VBG] > > Jean > > 08 Mar 2004 Subject: [NYDUTCHE] Re: Genealogical Tithing > Great idea, Cliff! Something we can all do, even if we don't consider > ourselves writers. I've been a columnist for the Southern CA Geneal > Society's excellent publication, The Searcher for the past four years and > two years ago the Editor suggested I take over a limping Writers' Group. We > now average 6- 8 people per meeting, and doing our own "genealogical > tithing" has been a great experience for all. I'll share your phrase with > them neato! > I've collected lists of "memory joggers," and at almost every meeting, I > pick one, or someone else may suggest one (a first date, a special pet, a > recipe with a tale to go with it). Then we write for 20 minutes or so, and > finally share our short 400500 word anecdotes or tales. They are always > delightful and stimulate additional ideas and anecdotes to write about. > There are many excellent books with good ideas, as well as > Internet sources which show you how to get started. One good site is > Virginia Allee's Family History Questionnaire > <http://fcs.tamu.edu/aging/Family_History_Questionnaire.htm> and Kirk > Polking's Writing Family Histories and Memoirs (Betterway Books, 1995) is > also excellent. > So folks, get it down on paper! Your descendants will love you > for it. Jean Chapman Snow > > > ==== NYOTSEGO Mailing List ==== > To unsubscribe from this list in list mode send an email with the word, unsubscribe,in the subject field & body of the message to the following address: NYOtsego-l-request@rootsweb.com > > ============================== > Gain access to over two billion names including the new Immigration > Collection with an Ancestry.com free trial. Click to learn more. > http://www.ancestry.com/rd/redir.asp?targetid=4930&sourceid=1237 > >