As family historians, we are well aware of the importance of knowing our family history. We’ve learned that our past has a great deal to do with our present and our future. When we learn about our ancestors, we learn more about ourselves.
Unfortunately, it’s not enough just to record our family history facts and those of past generations. It is equally important to document our life stories, our legacy. It’s essential to preserve our experiences, our successes, failures, joys and sadness so that future generations can learn from us. So they will not have to speculate about who you were.
What is Legacy Journalling?
Unlike lengthy memoirs that can be overwhelming an often dull because they are nothing more than a chronological outline of a person’s life, legacy journalling is comprised of short stories, vignettes, memories that share your life experiences one bite-sized nugget at a time.
The Benefits of Legacy Journalling
If only I had a legacy journal from my great-grandmother or my great great grandfather, the knowledge I would have about him or her would be immense. I wouldn’t have to read between the lines of the census document or will. I wouldn’t have to speculate. I wouldn’t have to piece to gather small fragments that I have gleamed from various documents.
Journalling your memories is a powerful legacy that you can gift our family and future generations. By putting down your life stories, you reach across generations. You’re able to share your life experiences and your wisdom. You preserve the truth of your life and who you were in your own words. Your future descendants will want to know who you were just as much as you want to understand your 3x great grandfather or grandmother.
Writing your legacy can also benefit you. It’ll help you to increase your own understanding of your life. Families can be complicated, and perhaps there are many versions of the truth out there waiting to be told. Writing your legacy is an opportunity for you to discuss your truth.
Recording your legacy will facilitate a personal growth and move you forward in your own life goals. It will be a moment of reflection as you live out the rest of your life and the experiences still to come. It can assist us in the transition from one life stage to another.
For those of us who are baby boomers and are now slowly entering into retirement, legacy writing is becoming very popular to help us make that transition. It allows us to take stock and recalibrate our lives of where we are and what’s left to be done. Legacy writing is also an opportunity to give back to our community through our local historical and heritage societies.
Local museums and archives want your family history, they need your life stories so that they can preserve them for future generations.
However, with all that being said we still find ourselves not recording our own stories. Generally, because we over complicate it. We don’t know what to write, we are overwhelmed, and we think our life story is uninteresting. But I assure your descendants 2 or 3 generations from now will want to know about your life just as much as we desire to know about our ancestor’s lives.
That is why I recommend legacy journaling. A simple process of capturing small stories, vignettes. Here are three easy steps to getting started in capturing your memories in a legacy journal.
- Choose a place to write – Find a place that you are comfortable capturing your memories, stories and life lessons. This can be a journal you can write longhand in, it can be a word document on your computer, or set up a journal in Scrivener. Don’t over complicate it choose something that works for you. Keep it simple. The more complicated you make it, the less likely it will happen.
- Choose a time – Set yourself a regular habit of writing, whether that is once a week, twice a week, once a day. Maybe jot down a memory of a story every morning with your cup of coffee, or one hour in the evening before you turn the T.V. on. Schedule a regular time writing so that it becomes a habit. Instead of opening Facebook in the morning or in the evening after dinner, take 30 minutes -1 hour and begin a journal and start writing your stories.
- Keep it Short – Sometimes where to begin can be overwhelming, and often new legacy writers fall into the trap of thinking they need to start at the beginning. You know “I was born on such and such a day to these parents and work your way forward. Yawn! You don’t have to tell your life story in chronological order. Instead, write small memories, reflections, vignettes, that offer up a lesson you learned, a joy, a sadness, a success or failure. Memories that carry with them words of wisdom for future generations.
Your descendants will want to read your words, learn your thoughts. Don’t over complicate. Start with a legacy journal and begin today.