How Will You Preserve Your Memories?

Gemma Green-Hope captures a scene many of us have faced (or might face in the future) as she describes how after her grandmother’s death in 2010, she had the task of helping her father and uncle sort through some of her grandmother’s possessions. She writes, “I inherited some of her clothes to wear, books to read, a bicycle to ride.” Gemma asks the question, “…how do you make sense of all the other things that someone leaves behind, the things nobody sees,

boxes full of photographs, and bits of string?” She decides to use her talents to make a tender, expressive, short animation dedicated to her grandmother’s memory. I love how this video has been viewed 229,000 times – showing that it speaks to viewers everywhere, who perhaps see the legacy left by their own beloved ancestors in this depiction of a young girl’s memories. Gemma describes her grandmother beautifully in the notes which introduce this animation on her Vimeo channel:

My grandmother Elizabeth (or Gan-Gan as I called her) was a force of nature; she was wonderful. As a child, she seemed to me like a visitor from another time or place. Her tiny terraced house in Bideford was full of treasures; hundreds of books, a medusa’s head, Peter the Great’s ivory letter opener, the caul of her mother tied up in blue ribbon, a tile stolen from the Alhambra, a silk blouse embroidered by nuns, deadly poison, beautiful Pre-Raphaelite artworks, a knife carved from the wood of HMS Victory, Granny Green’s pince-nez, and diaries full of stories from a hard life well-lived…

How will you preserve your memories and honor those who have gone on before? How will you show your ancestors to yourself? To others? The Family History Guide offers step-by-step instructions for a variety of ways to accomplish this delightful (yet often daunting) endeavor. Many ideas are found on the Memories Tab (in the FamilySearch drop-down menu on the home page) in the following categories (Project 2):

1: Gather Your Records 2: Gather Records from Others 3: Interview Relatives 4: Browse Memories 5: Prepare Uploads 6: Add and Tag Photos 7: Add Documents 8: Add Stories 9: Write a Life Sketch 10: Add Audio Files 11: Use the Gallery 12: Solutions Gallery

So many wonderful tools, resources, and ideas! Remember that it is a process to gather, preserve, and share memories, and working together with family members makes it easier, more efficient, and more fun.The important thing is to be working on it – a step at a time. I hope you enjoy this animation.