I scanned all of my Grandmother's handwritten recipe cards.
As we sat at the kitchen table scanning, I would ask her, "Who's Mabel?" and then she would tell me a story about her neighbour, or a cousin, etc.
Trying to take notes inconspicuously was the hard part.
She also didn't think that any of her stories were worth remembering... so it took a lot of coaxing. But I learned things about the family that I will never forget.
I have knick knacks, carved toys and such as memorabilia... little dolls, etc. I gave my husband's grandparents those books that ask 'what was life like when you were young' and they filled them out. So that is a treasure.
No real names or dates though. They are neat stories.
I guess that would be what folks would call 'family history' not 'genealogy'.
TBH, genealogy sometimes seems demeaning to ancestry. Just recording names and dates. Family history is the real fun of it, finding out how they lived and what they were like
But I don't think the term genealogy is demeaning -- if that's what people want to do, fine. And many people who call what they do "genealogy" are doing what you might call "family history".
Some racist poems written by my father, which will not be seeing the light of day again.
One of my younger sisters has his blood-stained wallet (taken off his body) which was cleaned as well as possible at the time by my eldest sister.
Plus I have a letter by my mother describing her time in the Land Army, which is transcribed at my website.
Otherwise nothing.
My family isn't much into preserving things. To a woman, we hate having our photos taken, so I doubt i could lay my hands on a photo of any of us that's less than 30 years old.
I do have the order of service for my oldest sister's husband's funeral, but he only died 2 years ago so I haven't had time to lose it yet.
Hi all, not sure if this counts but I know my mother has a lot of stuff including the letter my great-grandfather wrote to his widowed daughter-in-law, my grandmother, cutting her off, saying “we've already supported you enough”.
No, she would have been well in her 40s by then, and I can best describe her as “difficult”. Fortunately for mum, auntie and grandmother, my grandfather died from complications of being gassed in WW1, so grandmother got the war widows pension. It was hard, but you could live on it. I think my grandmother's siblings helped out. There was some other money in that side of the family.
